Reconstruction
by AV21
Summary: In the wake of rebuilding our foursome finds destinies bigger than they ever had planned. DG/Cain.
1. Prologue

Notes: Yes, this had been abandoned, and no, I have no earthly idea why I came back to it. Partially because every few months or so, and always on a really bad day, I would get a line from folks who asked me to finish. Having been one of those people who has pleaded for stories to be set free, I refused to be one of the writers who tormented people with unfinished tails. The first five chapters have been redone, and the sixth is new. The story will be completed, but I can't promise you when. My homework load demands that it be sooner rather than later. So, hold to hope.

I owe you.

* * *

There had to be a handbook somewhere. A secret handbook passed down from Queen to Queen; an ever-compounding pile of bullet lists added to by each monarch. Really, that was the only explanation. Inside half an hour Azkadelia was weaving what little magic she had left to the creation of oatmeal and the healing of lesser wounds, while Lavender Eyes was trying to subtly rest all her weight on Ahamo as she ranged through the troops, simply being seen as alive and walking around.

Step one to rebuilding a kingdom: stop the people from starving. DG remembered her European History teacher trying to beat into them that bread was the cause of every revolution, ever. Feed the resistance fighters today, and figure out a way to feed the oppressed masses tomorrow. A well-fed populace has much less reason to revolt than a starved one.

Step two: give the people something to believe in, to rally behind. The people had had an enemy to stand against that united every guild in a way that centuries of negotiation couldn't. Now they were poor, oppressed, starving, and Lavender Eyes wanted to give the factions something to fight for, rather than against.

DG was sure this moment would have helped her on her post-Civil War Reconstruction test right up until the moment Lavender insisted that they do something about the foul smell of this place. There was blood and gunpowder curdling the air around the tower, but Lavender Eyes laid her hands on DG's temple and reached into her mind and bade her conjure a breeze. She felt the plan laid out in her mother's mind, and swept up a gentle whisper to play round the tents and through the night.

There was something else her mother had DG tie through the spell; all of it light and colors that she didn't understand. But DG heard a fighter laugh that night. There was nothing in her history lectures about magically instilling a little hope.

That first night Lavender cut Az's tumbling locks short, down to DG's length, and gave her eldest daughter a pair of dark pants and a light blue shirt. DG could have sworn that she was looking at herself in seven years. DG didn't ask why they changed Az's appearance, but she understood in the glow of the morning.

When Az stepped out of the Tower the next morning, no one flinched at the sight of her like they did the day before. Az and DG walked together in the early morning light; thanking soldiers, healing wounds, and serving soup, all in perfect harmony. Suddenly they became the daughters that everyone remembered. With those simple changes the Witch was stripped from Az's countenance, and people saw only DG's sister.

There was a great, big, exceedingly well-organized plan to all of this, and that's when DG knew there had to be a to-do list. There was no way that her mother and sister just happened to do everything perfectly. Lavender remembered every last soldier's name. Ahamo swapped war stories and made the men laugh with tales of humiliating longcoats.

But the prize went to Azkadelia. She spent her morning draining her magic to see everyone properly fed for the next few days, and then spent the rest of the day burying the dead. She worked herself to the point of collapse digging graves, only stopping when the dizziness got too much to keep moving. Even then she would only pause for a moment to breathe, wave off assistance, and sweep her new bangs out of her wide, un-made-up eyes with a raw and muddy hand.

Eating only came when it was insisted upon by on of the Cain men, whose tender care of her convinced all the generations of Resistance fighters that she was to be trusted. One would bring her to wherever the other was with DG and the sisters would eat together, while the camp barely concealed their active analyzation of the situation.

She looked so young and so innocent in those moments. She would let small smiles creep out when DG told stories, and nodded her thanks when Jeb washed her dishes for her.

But everything was tempered by a shadow of guilt that sprang up whenever Glitch would glitch, or a soldier would mention a home, or the dead.

It was real guilt, DG knew that, but it was being used. Az understood the rules and regulations of a public persona long before the Sorceress had taken her over, and her time trapped in such a conniving brain only made Az better at it. She twisted her own emotion, showing just the right amount and at the best time.

And it worked.

After the first week of reconstruction Lavender had the basic infrastructure up and running again, with Resistance runners traveling back to their homelands to spread the joyous news of the Witch's fall, complete with their own personal testimonies that Princess Azkadelia was as different from their captor as night was to day.

It turned DG's stomach to see her sister being anything other than what she really was, to see a public lie; but she understood. This wasn't Az; it was Princess Azkadelia, the part she had to play to keep the OZ intact. She wouldn't be allowed to feel her grief, to let it simply burn through her until she had lifted some of its weight.

DG would have to play a part too, she understood that, but she just didn't know which part yet. Would she forever be seen as a warrior, or the slipper? Or would she slip into the background and just be a girl after her one chapter in the spotlight? She kept herself up at nights, wondering what she would have to pretend to be to fill the void, or how she would shut up that little voice in her head that was asking her how she planned on convincing herself that she was all right with pretending.

For now she helped Glitch with his plans and tended to minor wounds while she followed around Raw and the other Viewers. She couldn't work as hard as Az, under these rules of outward appearance, because if she did it would make Az seem all the less outstanding in her difference from the Witch.

So DG talked to people, as was always her way. Just like sitting down next to a trucker at the diner, you start talking about something else and all of a sudden the big, burly men are pulling pictures out of their wallets and talking about saving for their kid's college fund. She knew every name and knew every story by the end of the first week. She could recount their children, where they'd been stationed, and whom they had lost to the Witch's reign. Her heart taking in it all.

The word spread far and wide about the royals and how they were everything the people could have hoped for at the end of this long night. They were sending word to every faction within the kingdom to come and see for themselves, as if the loyalty of the Viewers, an ex-Captain of the Tin Men, and the most infamous leader in the Resistance wasn't enough.

The soldiers were thrilled with their Cain high commanders. The elders and ex-Tin Men attached themselves to Wyatt and wanted the world back as it was, while the youth would bleed and die for Jeb and the new order of things. With those men at the head of the military peace would be restored in a matter of weeks.

If those people could see underneath like DG did, they would see that for the Cain men to lead the Resistance through the Reconstruction was ripping apart their fragile relationship.

From the outside you would never know that Jeb and Wyatt hadn't passed more than a few words to one another since Wyatt had laid out to his boy in no uncertain terms that everyone needed to see them supporting Az. Jeb knew it before the words had crossed his father's lips, and he would have done it all on his own, but he couldn't stand being told.

From the outsider view all you would see was Glitch drawing up plans to rebuild the infrastructure, and Raw healing the wounded. They couldn't see Glitch sneaking into the brain room at night, staring at the piece of himself that could never go back, wondering what he might have been if he was smart again. Nor would they see the other freed Viewers shunning Raw, refusing to forgive him for former cowardice until the Elders declared it so.

Nor would they see what DG did with all those stories she heard. Each night she and Az would curl up in hiding, wrapped around one another, as Az would demand every last story from DG. She wanted to know everything, every death, and every pain. They would sob themselves to exhaustion, bleeding themselves for every life ruined by their childish stupidity.

At the end of the week, as they were making plans to move from the Tower back to Central City (both a show of strength and a place the factions would be more willing to come to see the restoration than the fortified tower),

Lavender Eyes waited up for her girls. She was surprised they could still function after not really sleeping for so many nights. She would watch them curl up in their isolated tent before she let herself drift away. Claiming it was her concern for them and her people rather than all that must still be done to those girls that kept her up at night.

Ahamo wrapped his arms around her and whispered, "You have to tell them."

Lavender relaxed into him and muttered, "I know."

"You thinking about not doing it. About just keeping it to yourself." She chose to ignore her husband's penchant for knowing exactly what she was thinking and said, "Az is killing herself to make the people believe in her. And DG is trying so hard to be a princess, trying to figure out who she is in this world, and to be what people want her to be. I don't want to change her."

"She's still our daughter Lav. She knows that we love her, and she knows who she is. She may be a little confused about where her path is supposed to go, but she knows the girl she really is, no matter what smile she has to put on."

"I know love, but that's what terrifies me." She turned her eyes up to her husband then laid her head back against his shoulder and whispered to the night, "I have to take that from her. Take herself from her, and pray that she finds her way back."


	2. History Lesson

They were coming in from every corner of the realm for the Autumn Feast. DG had explained the Otherside holiday, Thanksgiving, to Az, and it sounded like the rough equivalent. Gathering to thank the OZ and the gods for giving them bounty (scant though it was), and for blessing them with another year of their lives.

Az didn't quite grasp where the Royalist servants had appeared from, but they were scrubbing and stitching and baking to bring the Central City palace back to its former glory.

(She thought that the suddenly noble nobles who had spent the coup in foreign countries might have had something to do with it. She chose to ignore the fact that were so anxious to reestablish their own royal lines that they were willing to do anything to guide the Queen away from the fact that they were cowards and to just simply accept that under their directions and their servant's sweat the palace looked as if the Witch had never been there.)

And now the Autumn Feast would go on as it always had in the annuals before the Witch, with the Queen proclaiming in the invitations that, "We have been granted a second chance, given our lives and our country back. This year, above all others we are grateful for what we have been given."

It wasn't really about gratitude though.

The Resistance leaders were coming. They were the heads of every guild within the OZ, and they were coming to see for themselves the proof of this new beginning.

Az was terrified.

The lot had fallen to her to explain the political layout of the OZ to DG, and the only thing these people had in common anymore was their hatred of Az.

The Eastern Guild DG already had an acquaintance with. (She referred to them as the "blankidee-blank turkey people".) Though when not threatened with an impending hoard of Longcoats they were quite pleasant. They were a warrior society, with strict codes of honor and loyalty, and if you could abide by those you were trusted like kin. There were plenty of OZ-ian men who counted themselves as part of the Eastern Guild, but not specifically as Munchkins.

The Southern Guild was the broad name under which the Viewers fell, along with other races. In those woodlands, lakes and marshes all the wilder things of the OZ found their home, including the Papay, the Weres, the Merfolk, and at that point Az had been forced to stop explaining because DG had already interrupted her with questions about what she deemed "fairy tale" creatures. (As far as Az could tell, DG had grown up in a much tamer world, one that had had the magic beaten out of it by technology.) It was this Guild that Dg was bursting at the seems to see – being particularly thrilled at the concept of amphibious Merfolk rather than the solely water bound variety she knew from stories.

The Western Guild were men, plain and true. They found themselves good prairie land and farmed so that the OZ was fed. DG was thrilled to discover that this was where Cain had come from. (As if there could be any doubt, most lawmen came from this backbone of the OZ.) They were bred with a sense of duty out there, and a love of their fertile land and their blessed country. Most of the soldiers to fuel the Resistance had come from the Western Guild; folks who wanted nothing more than their natural born right to live their lives in an uninterrupted manner.

Az's terror laid in seeing the Northern Guild. They were the faerie folk. Gilikins, by their proper name, and every last one of them had the gift of some slight magic. A blacksmith among them might sharpen a sword that would never dull, or a seamstress could bless fabric that it might never tear. Things ever so simple, but extraordinary in their humble way.

They were all perfectly useful little tufts of magic that would never be able to challenge the House of Gale. The Witch had made sure of that. There had been experiments run on the Gilikins; magic tapped and bled from them as though they were maple trees, bred solely for the Witch's use. Of all the people's in the OZ, all the wretched things that the Witch had done in her name, experimenting on humans, trying to harvest their gifts and put them in bottles, was the worst.

And now it was a few nights before the Autumn Feast, and members from each faction of the Guilds were arriving. And Az was hiding in the royal chapel rather than face them.

It was a simple layout for the giant room within the Central Palace, just a long aisle with soaring windows along the sides magiced to match the weather outside and conceal the fact that these windows were actually glass laid over stone. The rest of the room was white marble. Smooth and clean bricks that grew to thick columns that spread themselves into the rib vaults along the ceiling. It was all white but for the benches and the pulpit, those were made of a dark redwood that was older than the House of Gale itself.

There were no paintings to disturb the flow of the white. The room was to always look clean and crisp, which didn't seem so terribly out of place in their world of more modern architecture, but the thousands of years ago in the elder days when it had been built, the crisp lines and unfettered white were the greatest gift the people could give the gods. Something clean and civilized in a world of war. As many times as the Central Palace had been torn down and rebuilt with regime changes, this Cathedral on the ground floor had been left untouched.

Az stood in the dead space between the benches of the quire, which ran parallel to the walls, and the sanctuary, which held the altar. Ahead of her was the altar for the sacrament, where she would kneel as a little girl and offer up her prayer of repentance. Behind her were the few rows of chairs for the choir to sit and sing praises to the gods, voices with angelic sound that she always prayed she'd had.

Az kept herself in the middle of that space, standing in the center of the only decoration in the hall. In long, unbroken strips of brown marble laid a triquetra on the floor, with a circle interlaced among its branches. She kept her feet firmly planted in the heart of it and stared at the altar, wondering what kind of alms she would have to give for the High Priestess to declare her forgiven. And just how many times would she go through that before she thought herself clean?

"Do you know what it means?"

Az whirled around and started at the rather distinguished man who had snuck up on her. His red hair streaked with white and an ethereal look would have set him off as one of the Fae even if Az didn't feel the magic in him. He was a Gili from the Northern Guild, and she could see in his stance the same invincible roguish look that followed around the other Resistance leaders.

"It's the Holy Triquetra, the mark of the gods. One arm for each of the creators." He opened the buttons on his formal jacket and slipped his hands into his pockets as smiled at her. There was something friendly about the gesture, as if he were settling himself down to talk to an old friend. But there was a teasing glint in his eye, as if he expected more of an answer than that.

"One for Kern, the Farmer and guardian of our homes, our land, and our peace. Another for Bo, the Seafarer who rides the waters, gives us our storms, our culture, and gives us war. And the last for Ak, the Woodsman who rules the wild and provides the balance between the two."

"Very good Highness. I confess I'm surprised that ancient history and religion weren't wiped from your mind with your possession." He slowly walked towards her, holding her gaze in his. There was still that teasing nature in his eyes, but there was an edge of malice to it now. Like a wolf toying with a bird before it sinks in its jaws.

"Tell me Highness, what brings you to this holy place?"

She stared at him for a moment, and made to step past him, but he blocked her way, and in that moment she could go no place other than his grey eyes, and felt the truth sucked out of her.

"Deeg collapsed." She bit down on the last consonant, trying to stop herself form speaking, but the words kept spilling out. "It's my fault. I've been making her talk to the soldiers for me, tell her their stories so she could tell me, so I could know everything that the Witch did with my body. Deeg has too kind a heart. She blames herself, and I didn't even think about what the knowing would do to her.

"I told her what the Guilds have become in the last fifteen years, all the pain that I caused. She just started to cry. She was just so tired from all the magic she's used, and all the guilt that she's felt." There were tears seeping down Az's face now and she was pleading with whatever merciful gods their were in the universe to make the bodyguard standing outside the hulking cathedral doors decide to check on her.

"She just collapsed; all the life gone out of her. She couldn't take any more horror stories. She's been watching us all kill ourselves to maintain the peace, and her heart couldn't take it any more. I came here to pray for her. I did it constantly when we were small, but I can't kneel at that altar. I can't plea to the gods when I can't feel them anymore."

Az heard the gun cock at the edge of her mind, and the Gili broke with her gaze when he felt the cool metal of a gun press up against his temple. "What are you doing to her?"

"Put the gun down Jeb."

"Conall, don't make me ask you again."

"He's a Gili, Mr. Cain. A Fae, with the gift to pull truth from people."

Jeb's crystalline eyes flashed to her for a moment before rounding on the man again. "All the information you got from Longcoats, and for some reason I thought you were just a fan of the torture. Turns out you've been magically sucking folks dry."

Conall snorted and stared at Jeb, not at all phased by the fact that Jeb was now standing between him and Az and the gun was pointed between his eyes. "Why do it to her?"

"Because I had to know Jeb. Your opinion carries weight with the Resistance, and I respect your opinion about just exactly what happened here, but I had to know for myself. Had to know beyond a shadow of a doubt. The rest of the Resistance will never speak another word against the Princess now that I've seen into her."Gili

"Seen into me?" she sputtered.

"I see more than just truth, child – when I'm looking for it. You've been caged and abused just like the rest of us." Conall stepped away from the gun as he bent his back in a slight bow to her and said, "You will hear no seditious mutters now. And I know you'll consider it a worthy exchange."

He took his long stride down back down the aisle, and Azkedelia kept her chin up as she watched him go. She made sure that the door was sealed before she muttered her thanks to Jeb for stepping in.

"My privilege, Princess." Jeb holstered his gun and started is walk back down the aisle, assuming Az wanted to be alone again. He made it only a few feet before he stopped and turned, fidgeting with the butt his gun, which Az had come to learn meant he was nervous.

"You should know that he means it. The whole Resistance takes his word as law. With him speaking for you and your family…you've just won the heart and mind of every person in the OZ. Despite the fact that he's a tactless twit for rooting around in your mind without your permission."

She gave him a small smile and made it a few steps down the aisle towards him before her legs began to shake and she felt Jeb's arm wrap around her waist, steadying her. He pulled back after a moment, but kept his hand on her far arm, making it look as though we was simply being protective and not carrying most of her weight.

"Are the rumors true? That the Resistance all throughout the OZ was scheduled to come out of hiding and attack during the Eclipse? And that's why there have been so few aftershocks of fighting?" She knew the answer to that. She had been in the mind of the military commander of a martial state for the last fifteen annuals. Had DG not destroyed the Witch then she would have seeped even more of her power out into her Longcoats and the Resistance would have been all but destroyed by now.

Despite the success of the Resistance surprise attack the real reason there had been no Longcoat uprisings was that their supplies had been cut off. Az had laid out directions to and numbers for every weapons cache and food store. Whatever will they had to fight was negated by being weaponless, leaderless, and starving.

She knew all of this, and Jeb knew she knew all of this. But making casual conversation seemed to be a better option than silence.

"Yes, Highness. And for that we're grateful. Gives men a chance to tend to crops and work on rebuilding rather than just trying to stop folks from tearing down."

Az didn't try to make conversation again. She just let them walk, and chose to ignore the fact that every time she tried to fidget out of Jeb's grip and carry her own weight he simply tightened his hold, refusing to give way to her stubbornness and let her been seen stumbling around hallways while he followed after.

They made it to her bedroom door where Jeb gracefully left her with a polite, "If there's anything else I can do for you Princess…." He tipped his head, slightly unsure about just how much of a bow was required of him.

"There is actually, Captain." Az twisted her hands for a moment before choosing to adopt honesty rather than regality in this moment. After all, putting on a front seemed to be partially what got DG into this situation in the first place. She was a girl looking out for her baby sister, not a princess handing down commands.

"Forgive your father."

Jeb's eyes grew wide while her more permanent guard who had followed them from the cathedral studiously kept his gaze on the wall opposite him and Az found it strange that she seemed to revel for a moment in throwing such a stoic as Jeb Cain off his guard.

"You know what happened to Deeg today." He nodded. "Of all the things that she's worried about, this is one of the easiest to fix. Well, perhaps easy isn't the right term. But whatever turned between you two in the last week is killing your father. And," Az paused to slightly blush, as if she were giving away her sister's grand secret, "we all know that whatever hurts your father, hurts my sister. I know it's not my place to ask Jeb, but…"

Jeb snorted and ran his fingers through his hair, looking painfully young in that moment. "My father woke up from a tin suit with the sure knowledge that my mother and I were gone. Everything he'd ever loved dead and buried for the last eight annuals. In that moment Glitch, Raw, and your sister became his reason to live, and if that's not family, I don't know family is.

"We'll have it out Princess. If it was really just him and me we might stay in our stubborn until one of us lay dying, but we won't hurt our kin to save our pride."

Az just stared at him for a moment, then in a surprisingly DG like move she threw her arms around him and whispered in his ear, "How do you still love like that? After all you've seen? All you've lost?"

Jeb squeezed her back, a full armed hug with his hands firmly fisted to make it obvious that his palms were to himself and the hug was nothing but brotherly. "Because I've got people who love me like that. Can't help but love the world when you've got folks in it that love you."

Az slid from his grasp with a peck on the cheek and slipped into her room before Jeb was even aware that she'd moved. He stared at the closed door for a moment, suddenly very conscious that the guard studiously standing out of Jeb's direct line of sight had actually been one of his soldiers, and had he been under any other man's direction there would have been no end of gossip in the morning, about both Cain men.

As it was, Jeb nodded to his man, muttered "Night Highness" to Az's door, and walked down the hall with his slightly sweaty hands squarely in his pockets. Not until the words meant to comfort had actually passed his lips did Jeb realize that Wyatt making family out of folks meant that they were Jeb's now too. A package deal.

And for some reason all the rage Jeb was expecting at having to share what he'd been missing for eight annuals, wasn't there. He had triple the family he'd ever had, all of them loyal and loving, and Jeb didn't think he had the energy in him to hate that.

He was off to find his father.

Unaware of Conall standing down the hall.


	3. Conversation

The rap on DG's door was concise and clear; that's how she knew it was the Tin Man.

The rap on DG's door was concise and clear; that's how she knew it was the Tin Man. The knock was never hard enough to shake the door like other soldiers, and always the same even meter, and not sporadic like Glitch's, or soft like Raw's.

She shouted, "Come in!" from her place in one of the comfortable chairs that she had pulled out to the balcony. She had her legs up on the railing while she used her thighs as an easel for her sketchpad. The Central City skyline was finding its way into her drawings. Currently she was obsessing over the shading of the turrets of the spire directly to the right of her.

Cain didn't come in, so she shouted again for him to come in, surprised that his wolf-like hearing hadn't heard her before.

She was answered with a slightly sharper knock than before, so she got up and swung open the door. "Why didn't you just come in when I called?"

Cain cocked an eyebrow from under his fedora and stated, as if it was obvious, "I can't come in Princess."

DG looked at him like he was insane. "Cain, you've come into my room every night for the last week. I rant about my day, you function as my OZ translator, and then we meet the rest of the group in the kitchen and sneak food with the staff since I don't eat the fancy stuff at dinner. And every now and again we're going to plan slightly dangerous jaunts around the OZ to keep me from getting bored."

"This is the routine. Isn't it?" The last comment was directed to her permanent bodyguard, the largest tree of a man that she had seen on either side.

While Cain was off directing security he left the rest of his posse, Az included, in the care of the most stalwart Tin Men turned Resistance fighters he could find. He'd taken Jeb's opinion on whom to choose before the two of them decided to stop talking to one another. Which was on the list of things that she decided to ask Cain about one of these nights they were chatting, though that was more a boy translation than an OZ translation.

The Tree had been stalwartly staring at the wall in front of him for every conversation DG and Cain ever had in front of him. His discretion was probably one of the reasons Jeb had recommended him. However, at this moment he turned to face DG and looked trapped between two of the strongest personalities that he'd ever come across.

"Isn't that how things have been going for the last week, Tree? Didn't he sit with me all yesterday afternoon when I, had my, ya know. All in my room. And now he can't come in?" Tree just looked back and forth between her and Cain, and then settled his gaze on the far wall again, finding more threat in Cain's eyes than DG's.

"It isn't appropriate Princess."

"It's been appropriate for the last week Cain, how is it not appropriate now?"

"People were busy at the tower, they didn't notice things. Now that you're back in Central City, there are people who are rooting for you to fail, and I'm not going to give them the ammunition to damage your reputation. So I'm going to stand here while you grab your shoes and then we'll head somewhere where there are witnesses."

DG snorted and taunted, "Are you afraid I'm going to hurt you Tin Man?" He rolled his eyes and maintained his stance in the doorway. "Why in the world would you be a threat to my reputation, oh moralistic head of my security?"

"I'm a single man DG." Cain said it like it was painfully obvious and he was a little embarrassed to even be talking about it.

"So?"

He cleared his throat and muttered, "You are a princess of the realm DG, and men shouldn't be alone in your presence. There are protocols for this sort of thing, and when you're living in the palace, surrounded by courtiers, they will be followed."

"That's stupid."

"No, Princess. It's for your protection. Now come on."

"Well, we're at an impasse Tin Man. I refuse to continue to give in to the pressure of idiotic peers and pretend you're not my friend just for the sake of appearances, and you refuse to move. So…" she shut the door in his face.

DG looked around the room for something that would make a significant enough smashing sound, one that despite Cain's sure knowledge of the fact that she wasn't actually in danger, he would still be honor bound to check on her.

She focused a moment and used her magic to hoist up her wardrobe a few inches and let it drop back down. Within a breath her door slammed open, and Cain came charging in with his gun drawn. DG grinned and stepped back over to her chair on the balcony while Cain stowed his weapon and DG magiced the door locked.

"So what's really up Tin Man? Is my collapsing from the strain of lying not enough to convince you that I loathe this game of pretend?"

"Princess, this is not allowed."

"I'm not naked or anything, Cain!"

He blushed a little at that one. "That's not the point, Princess."

"I'm not gonna lie here, I didn't expect you to be the kind to bend over and let propriety run us all over." She plopped back down in her chair on the balcony and grabbed her sketchbook.

She crashed her pencil back down on the paper and all of sudden the skyline of Central City turned dark and stormy rather than the falling twilight she had been aiming for. She heard the rustle of fabric behind her and then saw Cain step onto the balcony still armored in coat and fedora, and lean against the railing with his back to the sky.

"You've had a rough couple of weeks Princess, you shouldn't be embarrassed that you weren't feeling well."

"Cain, I collapsed from my ardent to desire to not face reality. That's not so much not feeling well, as it is my having a psychotic break."

"Princess, your world changed, twice --- in one week. That tends to unbalance a person. It'll take some time to get used to it, but you'll get there." She opened her mouth to protest, but he kept talking.

"And one of the things that you need to get used to is that there are rules about behavior for princesses. We're not going to stop being your friends DG, we just have to be a little more decorous in how we go about it."

"A little more decorous means that you're telling me what I want to hear so I don't start accidentally blowing things up again. Everyone is acting calm, and starting a whole new kind of pretending.

"Like if we behave for just a little while then we get to back to the way things were. That my family will all fall into place as this happy-go-lucky bunch of folks who will magically all fall into the roles we would've found if the Witch had never been here. At least before I freaked out we acknowledged the fact that that we'd screwed up and the world was shitty, but now, now we're just pretending that the last 15 years didn't happen.

"I'm not insane, Cain. I just, I _do_ feel like my world got rewritten six or seven times in the last week, and I'm not the only one! We all pretended that it didn't bother us, and now we're all pretending that it never happened!" At some point DG had slammed down her sketchbook and was shouting simultaneously at the sky and Cain.

"Somehow all the soldiers found out about the magical freak out and they've stopped talking to me, like telling me stories broke my brain or something! Az won't talk to me because of her stupid guilt, Glitch has stopped talking to his brain, and I think that Raw may have burst a blood vessel or eight from the pain gushing out of my head!" Now she was pacing. She didn't really understand what good the pacing was doing her, but it seemed appropriate.

"And you've been talking to Jeb! I saw him slip into your office when I was on my way to see you last night; but I guess it's a good thing that I didn't burst in on you because you would've thrown me out since you're not allowed to talk to me anymore! Though you didn't tell me what you argued about the first time, so why in the world would you talk to me about it now! I just rant to you about everything, so what would make me expect to have you tell me anything!"

Cain grabbed his fedora from off his head, squeezed it in his grip for a moment, and then tossed it onto the couch in the room. "Adora got remarried."

DG froze, mid-pace, and dropped down into her chair. "Oh. I should probably.... umm, go swallow my own tongue or something. I've just been whining about my life, and you, and I'm doing it again." DG had the grace to shield her rapidly rising blush in her hands, while Cain just snorted in humor at her embarrassment.

"My wife spent the last six annuals of her life happily married to another man. A man who raised my son." Cain turned around and leaned forward with his forearms on the railing. After a moment DG rose and mirrored him.

Cain ran his hand through his hair and fidgeted for a moment, trying to find his words. He knew that DG needed him to keep talking, but he needed something to do to trick himself into it. He settled on taking off his gun and coat and meticulously folding the later and placing it on her chair while he spoke. Not the best distraction, but enough.

"Jeb burst into my office, pulled up a chair, and then stared at his hands for a while. I tried asking him, but he wouldn't be pushed. I just did paperwork for a while, and the he snapped. It was like he was confessing. He promised that he'd never called him Dad, but he did love him… Eli, not him, Eli. Adora's husband, Eli.

"He taught Jeb how to shoot a gun, talked to him about women, and tried to talk him out of joining the Resistance. He's a farmer. Those fields we ran through, those were his."

"They -- they were well tended."

Cain smirked a little at that, and DG snuck her arm through his and wrapped her tiny hands around his. "He would feed whoever came to his door, but for the most part he kept them out of it. Zero just happened to stumble past Adora in a market one day when he was feeling particularly murderous. There was no reason for it, he just did."

They let the silence reign for a moment while DG rested her head on his shoulder and ran her thumb slowly over the peaks and valleys of his knuckles. "It wasn't about you. It was him, it was his own sick mind that hurt her Cain, not you."

"Yeah, that's what Jeb said too. My fighting didn't get her killed; Eli's not fighting didn't get her killed. Zero did it all on his own. He twisted himself into something other than human. And it had nothing to do with me."

"You don't really believe that."

"No, but Jeb just kept saying it. And he believes it. I could see it in his eyes. He doesn't blame me, and he doesn't blame Eli. I'll never completely forgive myself, but Jeb, he makes a difference."

Cain sniffed for a moment and turned his head away from DG, pretending for a moment that he had a cold. "She loved him Deeg. She was happy."

"And you're surprised that the world didn't end, or your head didn't explode or something?"

"Something like that. But I'm happy for her. I never thought that I was the kind of man who would be happy for her, happy for my childhood sweetheart finding peace in the arms of another man. I should be enraged that he raised my son and loved my wife, but I'm not. I'm grateful to him."

DG started to giggle and Cain turned back to her and tilted her chin up to face him. "What's so terribly funny about that?"

"You feel guilty about not feeling guilty! You feel bad that you're all right with her moving on, and that you're moving on."

Cain pulled his hands back from their place wrapped in DG's with more force than she was used to. Like Cain had just realized that he was resting under the harvest moon with DG's slight hand memorizing his knuckles, her arm wrapped around his, and her frame pressed to his side. And him standing there with no duster, no gun, and no fedora. Just Wyatt Cain, a man, not made of tin.

He stepped back into the room as DG sighed at the heat gone from next to her body, and the agony that rushed back in when she didn't have him at her side. "I didn't mean it as a bad thing."

"Don't worry about it Princess.

"Don't walk away Cain." She stood there, framed in the moonlight and watched him don the shield of his gun, duster and fedora once more, and then turn back to face her with aching slowness.

She prayed for moments like the one she'd just had with him. Chances to touch him, to be alone, and to hear him open his soul. Breaths of time where they were tangled together as Wyatt and DG, which decorum had just declared impossible.

But she didn't need decorum to keep him away now that the gap she kept putting between them was so wide. She opened her mouth to try and explain again, knowing it would do no good, when a haphazard knock came at the door.

She shouted, "Come in!" and Glitch responded with less than his usual perk. "Doll face, the Queen wants to see you."


	4. Truth

"Az, why would the Witch want Cain in a tin suit? I mean, he was just a Tin Man. Well, not just a Tin Man, but…why Cain?" Glitch glanced up from the skyline he had been observing, and DG saw his shoulders tense. While everyone else tiptoed around the subject of the Witch in front of Az, DG thought that if perhaps someone started treating Az like she wasn't made of glass she would feel all right about acting like she wasn't.

Az seemed to appreciate it.

Az looked up from her book with a quirk in her brow. "Are you serious Deeg? I know Commander Cain would not have mentioned anything, but surely one of the Resistance fighters has."

The Queen had kept her daughters waiting for the last twenty minutes, all of which Az had occupied with reading a book with a deliciously ancient, leather cover, and DG had been sprawled out on a couch while she talked to Glitch.

She was doing her best to ignore whatever in the world had just happened with Cain. Before her panic attack yesterday it had been over a week since they'd had an actual conversation, and then he'd only sat in the room with her as DG shook in her mother's arms. DG kept catching herself wanting to turn up by his side and talk about everything – or anything. And now he'd come to her, he'd talked, and she'd scared him off.

As a result she'd spent the last twenty minutes prodding Glitch into talking in a desperate attempt to get her own mind to shut up. She felt like she was sixteen again. She back in the those class periods that she'd wasted overanalyzing every move that her current crush made, and trying to figure out if there was meaning behind it. DG was absolutely positive that Cain hadn't just come to talk to her; he hadn't come to confide in her that his wife had been married. But he hadn't delivered a message either. And thus begins the terrible tailspin of unanswerable questions and self-doubt.

So, DG resorted to her best distraction: curiosity. Why in the world Wyatt Cain: Tin Man, would have been resigned to the Witch's worst punishment had eluded DG. She had opened the door for someone to explain it several times, but Cain would just pretend the door wasn't there, Glitch was sure he knew, but couldn't remember, Raw gave her the "it's not my story to tell" look, and any Resistance fighter or guard looked at her like there was no way she couldn't already know, and if she didn't it just wasn't their place to discuss it. A terribly frustrating conundrum.

"No Az. No mentioning. Whenever I bring it up people just look at me like I'm asking them who Santa Claus is."

Az sighed, "I assume that we're just going to glide right past the fact that _I_ don't know who Santa Claus is?"

"That would be appreciated."

Az slipped in a bookmark and slowly closed her book, obviously weighing the story rather carefully. Anything that would make Az want to give her a politically correct version of the truth made her rather nervous.

As Az opened her mouth to comment, the double doors swung open and in flowed the Queen. DG chose to stifle her mutter of, "You've got to be kidding me."

"I'm so sorry to leave you waiting my darlings. The meeting was supposed to much shorter, but after so many years that these Lords have been denied the opportunity to listen to the sound of their own voices they just don't know when to stop talking." Lavender Eyes gracefully sat down next to Azkadelia and took her hand, while the other gestured to DG to take her place at the Queen's side.

Ahamo slipped into the room through one of the less imposing side doors as DG stepped over to her mother. She looked over to smile at him, but the look in Ahamo's eyes stopped her in her tracks. DG looked back and forth between her parents, seeing the concern in Ahamo reflect back from Lavender.

But this wasn't the 'Ahamo delivering bad news because no one else wants to tell the Queen and accidentally damage her health' look. This was bad news that the Queen already knew. News she'd summoned her daughters to share with them, and Ahamo didn't want it brought up.

(Under other circumstances DG would have stopped for a moment to be happy about how well she was getting to know her parents, but she chose to be concerned instead).

DG dropped to her knees in front of her mother as she grabbed the still outstretched hand and asked, "What's wrong?"

"I know that you've been busy my girls, but how much of Ozian Royal History do you recall?"

"Ozian Royal History, Lav?"

"I'm easing into it Ahamo."

"I remember what I studied when we were younger, and when the Witch felt like talking to herself she would share stories. I always took those with a grain of salt though. Why?"

"I don't expect this to be anything the Witch would have bothered to pay attention to, she only seemed to regard the prophecies that could be taken to solidify her power. There have been prophecies about the fall of the House of Gale ever since it arose. Such is the trouble with leading a magical kingdom. However, most of them come from third-rate psychics that were only trying to appease whatever warlord employed them. All verifiable prophecies from the most recent decades are kept on record in the library downstairs. Everything before that was never thought to be written down."

Ahamo cleared his throat and continued on the rapidly tangenting Queen's behalf. "This only happens for recent prophecies, most of which are just vapor trips. Almost every good prophecy comes from thousands of years ago. Back when the OZ was wilder. All the creatures now are more tame than they were then, and apparently there are less Seers in the more stable centuries."

"Yes, though most of those prophecies have already been fulfilled or forgotten. There are still those that remain unfulfilled and have passed even beyond the realm of legend."

"One to light, and one to dark?"

Lavender put her hands to DG's cheeks and emphatically whispered, "No darling. That was only a few centuries ago, proclaimed in the last civil war actually. You and Az weren't meant to play out those roles, it was the Witch."

"She's not trying to instill more guilt in you Deeg, or to hoist off blame. She wants you to understand the difference. There are prophecies that are no older than teenagers in the grand scheme of the OZ's history. And then there are those that have been around since before the OZ even has a history. Sort of a 'deeper magic from before the dawn of time' concept. Just like there are – for lack of a better word – better prophecies, there are better seers."

"The Mystic Man was one of them. He was the most powerful Seer to come into the OZ since the Sibyl herself."

"Sibyl? As in, Aeneid? As in trapped in a jar and wanting to die, that Sibyl?"

Ahamo snorted at the shock on his wife's face and said, "Modern poetry aside, I'm fairly positive that parts of Earth's mythology and the OZ's mythology overlap. Like a third dimension straddling both worlds and tampering."

"How very Avalon-esque of them. You're not going to tell me that the Mystic Man is really Merlin and I get to be the OZ's version of Arthur, are you?"

There was silence, which was to be expected from her mother and Az, but Ahamo was thinking. The wheels in his head were spinning to figure out whether or not he could give a complete denial to that statement.

DG was on her feet in a second, shouting "WHAT!"

Ahamo pulled her down next to him on the couch and said, "Not so much Arthur as Morgan Le Fay, and only if you look at it from a modern perspective." Her expression must have conveyed confusion, so he kept talking. "In all the modern versions Morgan isn't wicked, let's keep that in mind. She's also used as a representation of the Celtic peoples, and the needs of the non-Romanized inhabitants. The spirit of the island."

"I didn't understand a word of that."

Az giggled at DG and said, "I'm so glad I'm not the only one."

"I'm fairly positive your father is the only one who understood himself there."

Everyone just kept smiling, but no one continued the explanation. DG looked over to Glitch, still maintaining his place in the corner. She supposed he was soaking in whatever part of him was Ambrose at this moment. Glitch would have carried them off on a tangent asking about whom in the OZ Arthur was, but Ambrose knew his place to wait until he was called on.

"You are two of the only sisters in a ruling family in the whole course of Ozian history. In civil wars, other houses have lost power because there were sisters."

"Why?"

"My angel, one of the Sibyl's most infamous prophecies was that second daughters belong to the OZ."

"What in the world does 'belong to the OZ' mean? Am I supposed to be sacrificed or something? I don't meet the traditional requirements for that sort of thing!"

"Well, that's just something that as your father I absolutely did not want to know, but we're just going to glide right on past that. You're not going to be sacrificed; in fact, there are plenty of times in the Gale family line that sisters have been born. As to what 'belonging' means, no is quite sure on that subject."

"But we have suspicions, don't we? And if it hasn't mattered before, why did people get overthrown?"

"Darling, there was always meant to be an accompanying prophecy, but in a civil war people will run with whatever justification they have."

"I hate sounding stupid here, but 'accompanying prophecy'?"

"We believe that 'belonging to the OZ' means that the OZ will choose for itself a Conduit. Rather than choose the heir and thrust its people into instability, the OZ would choose a second, but still magic wielding, daughter. We don't know to what extent the OZ would interfere with the daughter's magical ability, but given your incredible prowess, it seems to be to a great extent. We don't know if the OZ will just make you powerful, if it will talk to you, or if will even go so far as to make you a mouthpiece.

"However dear heart, we do know that the OZ would raise up a Seer a great as the Sibyl to prophesy that a Conduit had been born. The OZ wouldn't want to fulfill a prophecy and then have no one around great enough to declare it fulfilled."

"So you're telling me that the OZ put enough planning into this to send along someone to wrap up their prophecy, tinker with my genetic structure to make me supergirl, and yet it didn't have the foresight to leave behind an instruction manual?"

Ahamo wrapped his arm around her and said, "Something like that spitfire. But don't worry, we'll figure it out."

"But if The Mystic Man had this prophecy, didn't he say anything else?"

"No my dear. He took you in his arms when you were born and said, 'And so I meet the Conduit.' Nothing more."

"Why did you even feel the need to tell me this? Haven't I done what you think the OZ wants me to do already?"

"No, my angel, you and your sister defeated the Witch all by yourselves. You are epically powerful, but whenever Tutor mentions to you how powerful you are, he means your potential. This empty reservoir of power that floats around you, that will fill on your twenty-first birthday."

Lav must have seen the furrow in DG's brow, so she stopped her from having to ask another question. "Twenty-one is the age of adulthood in the OZ. It wouldn't send such a burden upon you without letting you have a childhood first."

"A week. I have a week before the OZ decides to…whatever, with me. And we have no way of knowing what in the world it is I'm supposed to do? Or what's going to happen to me? We don't know if the OZ is just going to take me over?"

The Queen slipped over to the couch and wrapped her arms around DG and comforted, "It won't come to that, my Angel. The OZ won't take you away from yourself. You won't be possessed. The OZ isn't the Witch."

DG shrugged off her parent's embrace and got up from the couch. "I just, I just need time to process, ok?" She stepped to the door, and waved Az off when she made to follow. "I'll be alright, I promise. I just need a little time to myself."


	5. We're Off to See the Sibyl

She had her back on the mattress with her feet plopped on her headboard in the air above her. As if changing the perspective of her world upside-down literally would help her figure out the same change in a figurative sense.

That was her pose when Cain appeared at her baseboard. She presumed that he had sent away her guard, telling him that it would be better for someone DG knew well to be looking after her in this case.

"Huh. I give you irony. An hour ago you wouldn't come past the door, and now you're next to my bed."

"Mitigating circumstances."

"Like Ambrose telling you that it's quite possible that in a week I'll be finding myself in the same possession that we just freed my sister from?"

"I haven't actually talked to Ambrose today. Did see Glitch though. Apparently after your little family meeting he sprinted to my office…"

"You have an office? How did I not know that?"

"Focus please. He burst in and told me everything, in a surprisingly coherent manner. He's grabbing whatever books he thinks we'll need and telling Raw. I went to Jeb and asked him, as a friend, to distract the guard while we make our getaway, and now I'm collecting you. Though I confess, I thought that you'd be packed and halfway out a window by now."

DG whirled up and stared at Cain. "Packed?"

"Can't save you unless we save the OZ. Can't save the OZ unless we know what's going on. Gotta know all the in's and out's of the prophecy to know what's going on."

"Mom said that the prophecy was never written down, it's just a legend. They didn't even think it was real until the Mystic Man said it had come to pass."

"No, it won't be in the library. Get up, get packed."

DG leapt to her feet and starting throwing things into her knapsack, but stopped mid-stuff. "Cain, we got into a fight this afternoon. I sent you back into the land of not talking."

"Deeg…"

"No Cain. I hurt you. I didn't mean to, and I'm not entirely sure what I said that made you so uncomfortable, but I did. And now you're picking up, leaving Jeb and you command, and I'm grateful, but…"

"Kid! It wasn't anything you said. You didn't hurt me. You didn't make me uncomfortable. Just realized that someone looking up from those gardens outside your window would have taken our friendship the wrong way. It's you I don't want getting hurt DG. Which is why I want you to continue putting clothes in that pack."

She smiled at him, content with his answer despite the fact that she knew it was more than a little bit lie. DG stuffed some more clothes into her bag and dove into the bathroom to put on her jeans, t-shirt, and bomber jacket. "Where are we going?"

"Presently? To the stable before one of your parents comes to check on you and insists that we wait and see what happens."

"I knew you were just as sick as I am of staying indoors!"

He shushed her as they crept into the hall. "You still haven't told me where we're going." She nestled a little too close to Cain's shoulder and fully admitted to herself that if she was going to granted more opportunities to be in breathing distance of him, she didn't much care where they were going.

"We're going to see the Sibyl."

Cain quickly stepped across the hallway in between groups of people, and then turned back to grab DG and haul her behind him when she was too shocked to move. "To see the Sibyl? The woman trapped in a cage by Apollo? Her?"

"I don't know who Apollo is kid, but to us, Bo was the one who trapped her. Glitch says that the royal family has a map to all sorts of magical places in this realm, most of which I thought only existed in bedtime stories. It's not much, but it's the best lead we've got, and we figured that you wouldn't mind taking it."

"Do you think the Sibyl will tell me what to do?"

"At this point any information is good information. And at the very least it beats sitting here waiting for fate to come crashing down on us rather than facing it."

Us. He'd said us. Fate crashing down on us. She just held onto that pronoun for the rest of the escape to the stables where Glitch, with a bag full of books; Raw, with what she hoped was some food intermingled with more of Glitch's books; and Az, were waiting.

Cain just started at Az for a moment and sighed. "Any point in talking you out of it?"

"None whatsoever. Besides, as fond as I am of Glitch, you'll need someone who you know what they're talking about, though they may not be quite as clever. And, while Glitch was rummaging through the library for everything ever mentioned about the Sibyl's prophecy, I thought that perhaps you might like to see everything that the Mystic Man had to say on the subject – ever."

Az reached into her conspicuously smaller pack and pulled out a stack of loosely bound, hand-written papers. "Are those…" Cain couldn't even articulate the sentence. Not that that was odd, but still.

"Yes. I broke into the Queen's private safe and took every prophecy the Mystic Man ever made. And not just the happy-go-lucky, censored to protect the innocent ones. Those written in his own hand and committed to protection by only the bearer of the Emerald. Should make for some interesting reading, don't you think?"

Cain snorted; knowing full well that the only way they were going to be allowed to look at those prophecies was to have Az along with them. She wasn't declaring their existence so much as giving the men their ultimatum.

"Mom said that he just declared it done."

"That may be all he told Mother, but I thought perhaps he might have been told more than he was willing to share."

Cain just nodded and everyone mounted their horses. "What direction, Zipperhead?"

"North. We're going to be heading straight into Guild territory."

"Of course we are. Can never just be simple can it?"

DG was practically bouncing in her saddle, and Az couldn't help but smile at her sister's excitement at going back to her version of normal. Theoretical impending doom or not. Az stared up at the sky and realized that they were tantalizingly close to twilight, but not enough to give them the cover five riders would need.

"Not entirely simple Mr. Cain." Az wove her magic through the air and ignored Glitch's sharp intake of breath when fog began rolling over Central City. "But perhaps just simple enough."


	6. Into the Wild

Notes: Yes, this had been abandoned, and no, I have no real idea why I came back to it. Partially because every few months or so, and always on a really bad day, I would get a line from folks who asked me to finish. Having been one of those people who has pleaded for stories to be set free, I refused to be one of the writers who tormented people with unfinished tails. The first five chapters have been redone, and the sixth is new. The story will be completed, but I can't promise you when. My homework load demands that it be sooner rather than later. So, hold to hope.

I owe you.

* * *

Getting out of Central City was terrifyingly easy. Cain knew that Az's fog was keeping them hidden, and that the people could feel some thread of magic running through it, which kept them to their houses. To say nothing about the fact that Jeb would have done anything short of staging a fake Longcoat attack to buy them the time they needed to get out of range of the City. But still. He made a mental note about the utter lack of security and tried to think of who he should scold for being tricked out of leaving their posts. Though it probably had more to do with loyalty to Jeb than being deceived.

During Jeb's confessional the day before, tangents ran away with him. This led Jeb to call Az and DG family as he explained that he was irritated with Cain for not trusting him to do whatever he could for them without any prodding from his father. It was one of the more interesting arguments Cain had ever had in his argued about the fact that they agreed with each other. They were both so primed for a fight that it took them about three minutes to realize that they were saying the same thing.

Cain was on his way to Jeb as soon as he had a handle on Glitch's meaning. Jeb was overseeing troop distribution (Not talking to his son didn't mean he didn't know where he was at all times.) Jeb had his father's intuition and could feel the change in the air as Cain stopped out of sight of the main body of soldiers. With a nod to his Lieutenant, Jeb strolled over to Cain as though there wasn't such an intense look in his father's eyes.

They were apart again three minutes after that. A palace siege, a week of ignoring one another, one good conversation, and three minutes of laying out an almost hopeless plan. That's all the time he'd been granted with his son.

Cain met Jeb's eyes and struggled to find the way to tell him that he didn't want to leave him. Not now, not ever again. But he couldn't leave DG on her own, and in a way that had nothing to do with his duty to the Crown. But all Cain could manage was a tight grip on Jeb's shoulder and he turned to walk away.

He paused for a moment, realizing he was a total fool, but before he could stop himself Cain turned back and wrapped him arms around his son. After a moment they broke the hug, both choosing to ignore for a moment the soldier/cowboy/traditionalist part of their brain that told them affection was unmanly. Cain would only admit to learning one thing from this whole infernal affair: life is too short.

And so here he was, galloping across one of the last stretches of open country before they hit the trees of Gili country. A few weeks ago they'd taken one of the enchanted express routes to the Northern Palace, bending time and space to get them there in a matter of hours rather than the days they would spend going overland through Gili territory. Cain was out ahead of the group, careful to make sure they weren't riding into a trap. For all of the dangers any possible rogue Giliken's could pose, Cain would feel better under the cover of the trees and whatever protection the Northern Guild could offer rather than roaming around where the Longcoats could find them.

Whenever he rode back into earshot of the trotting group he could hear the lilting laughter of DG and AZ, the unbalanced cackle of Glitch, and the occasional gawfaw of Raw. They weren't doing a very good job of following Cain's counsel to keep the noise down, but he couldn't bring himself to care. He wasn't sure if they were laughing because of Glitch saying something particularly funny, or if the girls were just thrilled to be behaving like themselves for the first time in a long while.

He liked to hear her laugh. She'd been so stressed the last weeks, finding herself a new kind of lost. She made it as difficult as humanly possible to worry about her, because if she caught on that you were wasting any of your worry on her while you had an army to think about, she'd stop telling you things. And she needed that release, to say nothing of the fact that he liked it when she told him things. She'd been taking all the pain of the Witch's actions into her, but if Cain could get her to talk about it he could keep her from exploding with all the misplaced guilt.

He always made her think she was seeking information, not that he was giving it. She had to be provoked into a question asking mood where she wouldn't be able to keep herself from asking Cain some follow-up questions about the life of a particular Resistance fighter. It was exhausting work. He had to be just reluctant enough that she didn't suspect she was being led, and he had to find ways out of sometimes saying he didn't know what had happened without his reason being that he missed that part of the story due to more than a decade in a tin suit.

He was distinctly reminded of taming horses. An unusually apt metaphor when dealing with DG.

Cain's father didn't believe in breaking animals -- he liked things with a little spirit. So the horse had to want to work with you, had to want to run with you. (Yes, work with, run with. Never for. Cain had heard his father's lecture on how to make a partner of something rather than a servant of it more than once.) Taming the horse without breaking it nearly killed the human in the process, but a horse that ran with you of its own free will because it trusted you -- that was a friend.

Cain could only imagine what DG would say to being compared to a horse. Her irritation would be second only to his father's for talking that way about a woman. Especially a woman he owed as much to as he did to DG.

He, Glitch, and Raw had gotten a lecture on propriety concerning the princesses w from the wife of one of the more gutless nobles. Raw and Glitch had stowed their pride and done what they knew was right to keep DG safe from rumors, but Cain had let his disdain for the cowards who cared about that sort of thing get in the way. DG was at her breaking point, so Cain took the day off and arranged the same for her. They spent the day on one of the Palace balconies, her drawing and him reading, with no care for what it looked like. He cared a few hours later when he heard the servants whispering about them in the hallway, wondering what sort of influence the Other Side had had on their Princess that she thought herself such a commoner that she could be alone in the company of an unmarried man.

He avoided her for days after that, letting any thoughts of their misbehavior drip away from the public consciousness like their day together had been an unusual occurrence. Cain had left her to herself, left her to drift away in guilt. She'd had a hard few days, drained her magic, played nice with nobles she actually despised, and pushed herself to her breaking point. He blamed himself for her breakdown. He didn't have to stop talking to her. He could've had Glitch and Raw with him, or just broken into her room so no one noticed. He'd walked into wars with her, and then failed on the little things. He wasn't going to do it again.

Cain jumped and turned his horse to move on to the next rise, all too aware that he'd been staring at DG for far longer than he should. He chose to stop thinking about how much happier she looked outside of the city. He wheeled his horse around, grateful that his distance from the party hid the object of his staring and made it appear as though he was looking after the group.

In that instant there was white light, searing pain, and the hills were gone.

As vision came back to his eyes and the hurt didn't entirely leave his body, he saw that he was surrounded by dense forest. They had to be at least two days ride to the north from where he'd been a moment ago. Cain flipped his horse back around, thankful for the muffled echoes of the group's shouts off in the distance. They were shouting for him and not for one another, meaning that despite whatever had happened, they were still together. That was Cain's last fully formed thought for a few moments until he hit the ground at full gallop.

That wretched pain he'd felt when the landscape shifted had localized to the large gash running through his thigh and letting the dark burgundy blood from a femoral artery run free. For some reason his eyes wouldn't open, and though some part of him knew that should worry him, he couldn't summon up the will to care. He felt the pressure of someone lashing a turniquet high up on his thigh in an attempt to stop the bleeding, and there was a voice that he assumed was attached to that pressure telling him to wake up, but his apathy remained. Then all of sudden the voice was cut off mid-word, and the hands applying pressure to his leg were ripped away.

There was a new set of hands, ones he knew. Complete with a voice that he knew had called him back from the dead before.

"Cain! You have to wake up! Cain!" Somewhere off in the haze he could feel her shaking him. He thought. For some reason Cain didn't feel much like he was inside his own body at this particular moment.

"Raw! He's not waking up!" There was nothing for a few moments, not enough blood left in his body to power his brain to realize that Raw's hands were laid over his bloody thigh. In the haze there was a dull itching that steadily grew to a burning, and then a mind numbing pain. He heard yelling. As his mind came back to his body, Cain realized that the shouting was his own.

The pain ebbed after a few minutes, and Cain regained the will to open his eyes. He stared up at the canopy above him and tried to remember how in the world he'd ended up on his back in the middle of the forest. It was back in a flash, and Cain tried to bolt upright and go for his gun.

"Easy, Wyatt. You have to rest for a minute. The Viewer undid quite a bit of damage and you need a moment to catch up." Raw was kneeling near Cain's feet, with a standing Glitch's hand on his shoulder. Glitch looked like he was ready to dance with any number of the Northern Gili's standing around them. Wait...Gili's? Cain looked back up at the man who had been holding down his shoulders to keep him from thrashing when Raw healed him, and said, "Conall?"

"Good to see you have some shreds of decency left in you, Wy. I thought you were just going to ignore an old friend." Cain started to put the pieces together: they'd been moved to Guild territory, right into a lump of ex-Resistance fighters, probably by a Gili more than a little touched with magic, and probably at Conall's instance.

The idiot.

"Conall, how the hell did we get here, how did I almost die, and where are the girls?" Cain went to sit up again as Conall put his weight back on Cain's shoulders.  
"Deeg! Az!" Cain shouted. He'd heard her, he knew he'd heard DG when he was bleeding out. All the horrible things those girls had roaming around their heads, they shouldn't have been seeing him die.

DG was at his side in a moment, fresh from wrapped in the arms of Az where her beloved elder sister had been trying to shield DG's gaze from the bleeding Tin Man. DG had used her magic to toss away the Gilis attempting to tend to Cain, but allowed herself to be led away when she started to shake at the feel of the cold Tin Man under her hands.

"Hey there, Tin Man. You have to rest for a minute." Her eyes were red, red from crying over him, and before Cain could stop himself he put his hand to her cheek and wiped away one of her tears. She leaned her head into his hand for a moment before Cain pulled back, slightly embarrassed.

DG couldn't help herself. She knew about this Conall fellow from Az, and for pulling them into something that had hurt Cain, she felt like increasing the slightly shocked expression on his face.

"Not gonna lie Cain, I wasn't expecting these to be the circumstances the first time I got to hear you screaming my name. And I always thought that I would be the one on my back."

Raw snorted, Glitch turned away from them so Cain couldn't see him laugh, and DG could sense Az trying not to make a sound. Despite the start from the man who Az said could see into people's souls, the fact that Cain was blushing was the result she was really looking for.

"What?" It was at moments like these that DG was truly grateful for her the innocence conveyed by big blue eyes. She looked at the shock on Conall's face and looked like she had no idea why he was so surprised. "I meant the when I finally get myself into so much trouble that I get myself thrown on my tail and Cain finally has to yell at me. What are the two of you thinking?"

Conall was trying to see into her, she could tell, but DG refused to make eye contact and instead helped Cain to his feet. He smirked at her for a moment, knowing exactly what she was doing before he turned to face Conall, who still looked mildly perturbed that he had no more idea about what was going on than anyone else. Something was interfering with his ability to read her, and DG would run with that as long as she could.

"So, Mr. Conall. How in the world did we go from half a day outside of Central City to the heart of Northern Guild territory? And just to satisfy my own curiosity, why did you put a hole in my Tin Man?" DG stared him down with her hands on her hips and dripping in defiance. Conall looked at the circle of friends surrounding her, taking in the territorial glints in their eyes, and absorbing the fact that Wyatt Cain had used his soft smile on her, and thought to himself that this week was turning out to be so much more entertaining than he thought it would.


	7. Entirely New Information

Rougher than I'd like, but this chapter needs to get out of the way because it's mugging down the bits of the story I want to get to. Hope your Mondays are going better than mine! Also, more than willing to have summary suggestions, because mine only works for the first few chapters.

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Rather than answer her questions, Conall had simply turned and started walking. Since it didn't seem to bother Cain that Conall wasn't talking, DG followed along as well and assumed the answers would come. After a minute of walking DG felt the air change, as though she was passing through a magical wall. She looked over to Az, who seemed puzzled for a moment, and then clarity spread across her features.

"You've shielded your villages! That's why the Sorceress could never find you!" Conall grinned at Az over his shoulder before deciding it probably wasn't proper to be grinning at a princess. "I'll need to have Gregory tweak the shields again. No one is supposed to be able to feel their presence. Rather impressive highness." Az stuck her chin out slightly, pretending that she wasn't pleased by his praise, and that there wasn't a pink tinge to her cheeks. DG made a mental note to ask Az about that twinge later.

Within minutes they were to the village, and DG noticed two things right off the bat. The first was that for all the magic these people possessed, they lived very simply. The houses were small and wooden, which she had to admit suited the air of wildness given by the trees spreading out in all directions. She quirked an eyebrow at Az about the distinct lack of modernization, but Az just shrugged her shoulders.

The second was that they were being whispered about as they walked by the villagers going about their daily lives. Or at least, she thought that's what was happening. Then a rather portly fellow with a smile that lifted DG's soul walked up without sparing a glace at the Gale sisters and hoisted Cain into so massive a hug that the stranger lifted him into the air.

He patted a grinning Cain on the back and muttered hellos before putting him back on the ground, and then waved off Conall's frown. "I know you told us to leave him be until you'd had a chance to chat with all of them, but under no circumstances was I not going to say hello to my baby cousin the first chance I got." The man went toe to toe with Conall for a moment before walking back to the group of now grinning Gilis he had just left.

Cain caught DG's eye straightaway, knowing that she was about to make a fuss and mouthed "later" to her. DG attempted to convey "Dang straight we'll talk about this later" via her raised eyebrows, but judging from Cain's smirk she didn't think she'd did a very good job of it.

Conall ushered them into a building slightly larger than the others and DG suddenly understood why the Northern Guild could live so simply. The inside of the building was much larger than the outside, spreading down in a great hall, and reaching up to windows that hadn't been on the outside of the building. The woodwork was exquisite, with great branches twisting together to form the pillars and giving DG the sensation the whole place was growing up from the wooden floor.

Conall walked all the way through the hall with DG trailing behind and starting at the beauty of the building. He led them into a small anteroom off the main room, one just as unique, but complete with much more comfortable chairs. "Are all the buildings like this?" Conall looked mildly shocked, as though now that they were safely away from ears, he was expecting her question to be about something other than the architecture. DG plopped down next to Az on a bench laden with pillows. Raw borrowed a rather large pillow from another one of the chairs and settled himself on the floor, while Glitch chose to stand behind their bench and do his best to look mildly intimidating.

Conall stared at DG again, and the more he tried to read her, the more DG could see a change in his eyes as he used his magic. It wasn't a physical change, or anything she could really describe, she just knew he was using magic, and that he was terribly good at it. DG only had a passing thought about how this level of understanding hadn't happened before, and then the door flew open. In burst a sobbing little girl who skidded to a stop in front of Cain.

"I'm so sorry Mr. Cain! I didn't... you just, slipped." Cain just stared at this slip of a girl, no older than twelve, looking up at him with all the remorse in the world in her huge green eyes.

"I kept waiting for you to get closer to the group, but the Longcoats were getting nearer, and that was the closest you'd been since you'd left the City. So when you turned your horse to go further away, I just took you all right then. I didn't have a good grip on you Sir, but I did it anyway. And I'm so sorry! You slipped and started to re-corporialize. I got you back though! But only after you'd gone through some rocks...I'm so sorry."

The movement was so fluid that for a moment DG wasn't sure she'd seen it properly. One moment the little girl was staring up at Cain, and the next he was on his knees with her in his arms. He stroked his hand over her hair, and shushed her, telling her that everything was all right. "You did an incredible bit of magic, little one, and you didn't do anything worth crying about. You shaved two days off our trip, and that's worth a little of my blood any day." The girl giggled a bit, and DG was almost sure that the girl wiped her nose on his shirt before Cain kissed the girl on the forehead and rose up from his knees to release her back out the door and into the care of the adults standing outside the door who hadn't had the heart to stop her from bursting in.

Cain smiled at her when she turned to wave goodbye, but that smile was gone when Cain turned and his fist collided with Conall's face.

Conall looked back at Cain with a shocked expression and blood dripping from his nose. "Con, you are an idiot sometimes." Conall wiped the blood off his face, and then swung back, nailing Cain in the jaw.

The group of two men and a woman that had been with Conall attempting to patch Cain back together in the woods had come in with them from the forest had stopped outside the door to their anteroom, but the sounds of violence seemed to be enough to draw them through the door. The men didn't seem to notice that Cain and Conall had stopped hitting each other after one swing apiece, and still jumped in between and unnecessarily pulled them apart. The woman moved to put a rag to Conall's nose and looked irked when Conall waved her away.

"Does she look like she got hurt?"

"She was sobbing Con!"

"Because she was worried about you! Not because she was hurt!" The men stepped back at this point, realizing that neither Cain nor Conall had moved from the places where they had been left. They both looked at the woman, thoroughly confused about what in the world was going on. The woman looked to Az, who mouthed something about transportation.

"She's a kid! You can't send kids running around using magic that big!"

"How would you know?"

Cain stared at Conall for a moment, looking at him like he was a complete and utter idiot, and then started to laugh. "How would I know? I've just been chasing around the royal house for the last month, so of course I wouldn't know anything about magic."

DG couldn't take it anymore and put her hand on Cain's shoulder to calm him, and said, "She's fine Cain." He opened his mouth to retort, but DG cut him off. "She's strong Cain, incredibly strong. Pulling us here was easy for her. She could have shipped us three countries away before she felt the strain."

Cain could see the surety in DG's eyes, but though he knew that DG had no way of knowing that. He put that concern aside for the moment and looked back at Conall, who nodded in response. "You know how it works, Wy. Either you're good at lots of things, or invincible at one thing. All she can do is transport. Just blink things out of existence and bring them back somewhere else, and at this, she's the best there's ever been."

Conall stepped forward again, toe to toe with Cain and said, "I didn't hurt her. And I won't hurt them." DG could see Cain's jaw muscle working as he debated with himself.

"You have my word Wy. I won't betray them."

Cain stared back at Conall for a moment; still weighing just how much he was willing to trust a man he hadn't seen in over a decade. And then Cain smiled. "Raw, would you mind putting Conall's nose back together for me? The Village Council told me that if I ever broke it again I would be doing the dishes for the rest of my life. And we don't have that kind of time."

Raw slipped forward and placed his paw over Conall's nose for just a moment to stop the bleeding. Raw's eyes were glazed over a bit, as though the rapid change in emotion was too much for him to deal with. DG had never seen Cain smack anyone around and then smile at them. DG was having strange flashbacks to the Smith boys down the street who used to beat on their baby brother and then close ranks to fight whoever looked sideways at the same brother.

Then it hit her.

"Holy Hell. He's your brother." She stumbled back to the bench and tripped down next to Az, all the while keeping her bewildered eyes on Cain's.

"Deeg..."

"No calming me down Tin Man! All. Stories. Answered. Now."


	8. Feeling Truthsome

KLCtheBookWorm, twilightplotbunny, and Onora -- another, slightly less well edited than in should be because I was excited, chapter. Just for ya'll. The reviews brought me joy when Contracts was getting me down. And I thought kharma should reward you for being nice.

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"Highness, you're overreacting."

DG turned to an equally shocked Az and said, "How did we not know this?"

"I have no idea. She didn't even know he was part Gili, let alone that he was related to the head of the Northern Guild! She would have done worse than put him in the suit."

"DG…" Cain tried to interrupt, but they ignored him.

"Why worse? And what in land sakes could be worse?"

"Ripped out his soul, broken him, made him a puppet. All sorts of things just to keep him alive." DG still looked confused, so Az continued. "The Northern Guild leadership is patriarchal and hereditary Deeg. Any siblings to their Chief are valued. Their bloodline has been uninterrupted since the beginning of recorded history. Sure, there's been the occasional jump from grandfather to grandson because of a bad seed or a daughter, but never a usurping cousin, a friend, an illegitimate son, or an outside coup. Their line has been, for all intents and purposes, perfect. However, Conall has no children, and as far as both the Witch and mother knew, no siblings."

"Az…" Once again, Cain was ignored.

"But wait, why would Jeb put a gun to his uncle's head? That's an intense love of duty, even for him. Oh no! Does Jeb not know?"

"Girls!" They both stopped talking to glower at Cain for interrupting, but Cain hadn't been quite prepared for the sudden silence and didn't seem to know what to do with it, so he turned to Conall. "Wait, why did Jeb put a gun to you?"

"I read Azkadelia. He was less than pleased. Both that I read her and that I got past his guard to do so."

"Mr. Cain, why _would_ Jeb resort to gun when dealing with his uncle?"

"How do you know…"

"A) you behave like it and B) you told her she was overreacting, not that she was wrong." Glitch piped up from behind the sisters, clearly putting the pieces together at a much faster rate than the girls.

Conall nodded in acceptance and putted over a chair to explain. "Though technically we're cousins who happen to behave like brothers. On days where Jeb isn't mad at me he calls me uncle. Though that hasn't been for several years."

"Why?" Az continued the questioning on DG's behalf while she unabashedly started at Cain. Who, for the first time, was refusing to meet her eyes.

"Because I gave orders that Wy was to stay in the tin suit.

That got DG's attention. "What!"

"It was the only way to keep him alive and to protect my people."

"Umm, Cain," said Glitch, "is there a particular reason why we haven't beaten him for this? Or better yet, put him in a suit of his own?"

"This isn't new information for me Zipper-head. Jeb told me about it the night we met up with the Resistance."

"But Zero…"

"Beat my son and murdered my wife. There's a difference between that and trying to save the Guild. Can't fault him for what he did."

"Like hell you can't! Why did you have to go in the suit at all! What was the point!"

"For all the reasons that Azkadelia mentioned before, Highness. I have no children, and until I do, Wy is my heir. And unless I become more domestic in my inclinations, Jeb will become leader of our people."

"So you lock Cain up in a suit but let his son run around with the Resistance?"

"Jeb Cain has spent his entire adult life surrounded by the best fighters the Northern Guild has ever trained. And with Wy as his father, pulling Jeb out of the fighting would not only be impossible, it would look suspicious. Be assured, I would have preferred to fake the deaths of the whole Cain family and bring them to safety, but Zero had Wy in that damn contraption before I got the chance. I insisted any Resistance fighter left alone what I thought was my baby brother's body, so at least the Longcoats couldn't desecrate him. Jeb could have forgiven me for protecting a corpse, but not for making sure his father stayed trapped."

"If you hadn't insisted…"

"I would've been worse than a dead man Deeg."

"Why?" The two men glanced at one another for a moment, unsure how to continue, but Az took up the tale for them. "The Mystic Man loved you, and she could never figure out why. You worked for him, and you led the Resistance brigade that broke him out of prison, and almost saved our mother, but that wasn't it. She made Lylo invade the Mystic Man's mind from afar, and Lylo was getting to close the secret he had wrapped up in all that magic.

"But then Zero put you in a suit for safekeeping, and the Mystic Man erased it all. He wiped his own memory. Every incriminating spec was gone, and in the end you were just a good man who once worked for him. Why would he do that Cain? Why was he so determined to protect you?"

Cain cleared his throat, and on rather painful footing continued. "The Mystic Man was our uncle. Outside of the Elders in this main village, no one knows for sure who the children are of the Chief's family until they come of age. Uncle knew that he wouldn't be able to spend his life among the Northern Guild; that his gifts were so profound he needed to be in service to the Queen. So he was never announced as the second son, and no one ever knew. To the outside world he was just another exceptionally talented Gili."

"So, Conall's father was the Guild Chief, and then came the Mystic Man, then…?"

"My mother. Many, many years after her brothers came my mother. Grandfather was so thrilled to have her that he never denied her anything. Not even when she went to visit Uncle in Central City and ended up running off with a Western Guild rancher who was there to trade. Not even when she married him without permission. And not even when she died in childbirth like her mother before her."

He could see it welling in DG's eyes – the compassion that he had so hoped to avoid by not having this conversation. "I went back and forth between the two families until I met a Western Guild girl and started a family of my own. But I was always on call for the Mystic Man rotation my whole career with the Tin Men."

"Cain, why didn't you tell me any of this?"

"Didn't think it mattered much anymore. It was all long dead and buried."

"Not the point, Tin Man."

"Wy, would you mind seeing if dinner is ready out there? I have a feeling the general mood will improve once we've all had some supper." Cain had been cut off to stop him from saying something stupid in response to the empathy in DG's eyes, and he knew it. He chose to ignore being led about by Conall, and went out the door instead.

Conall rose and went to a small desk in the corner, taking out a key and speaking as he went. "Wyatt was always Uncle's favorite, but not favorite in the usual way. Of course, Uncle made sure Wy had the best education and dragged him into Central City for plays and things, and made sure he understood etiquette better than either of his lives demanded; but most people assumed it was all about Uncle wanting the last remnant of his baby sister to do well in the world."

Conall unlocked the top drawer and pulled out a single sheet of folded paper. "That played a part, I'm sure, but his paternalism had more to do with this." Conall handed the paper to DG, whose curiosity overcame her desire to throttle him.

The paper was a mess. Over and over again were the words, "Wy has to live." The Mystic Man had written it every language imaginable, every direction, made pictures of it, changed writing tools, and turned the phrase out its right sense so desperate was his desire to understand the meanings.

"Finished prophecies were given to the Queen in words, polished until he found exactly what the images and feelings in his head were meant to be translated as. While they were still impulses, not instructions, just things he _knew_; they looked like this. He broke several laws to give this to me, because a prophecy passed about in this state would induce no small amount of panic that we're placing trust in people that seem rather crazy.

"When he put this in my hand he told me Wy had to live. He didn't know why yet, but he _had_ to. And that he knew that seeing to that would be one of the most important things he would ever do. He told me to do what I could for everyone else, for the Guild, for my own family, but that I was put on this earth to see Wyatt Cain live. He told me this was more important than the war. This was more important than Adora. This was more important than Jeb."

DG looked at him as though she was disgusted, but Az's calming hand on her knee got her to refrain from speaking ill of the dead. "Princess, you have to understand. I was 15 when he gave me this paper. Wy was 8. Uncle didn't know who Adora was, he didn't know who Jeb was. He didn't know that the Witch was coming, at that point he didn't even know why the fates were telling him to keep Wy alive. I don't know if he ever found out."

Conall leaned forward and rested his hand on DG's, and looked at her with a sense of pleading. "We make our choices, Highness. We become what we choose to be, but that doesn't change the fact that fate knows what it can make of us. Wy has more to do, and I did what I had to to get him there."

DG ripped her hand away from his and called him something that made Az blush. "You left him in there. You knew he was alive and you left him in there anyway."

"I kept my promise. And I hope to high heaven that it was worth it."

DG started to pace. She needed Cain back in the room. She needed to tell him that they needed to get out of there and she needed him to grant her absolution for killing one of his few remaining relatives.

However, Glitch seemed wholly unperturbed by this, and asked, "How did you know he would survive?"

"That's his gift."

"Survival?"

Conall gave just the briefest of smiles and said, "Strength. He's stronger than a man should be. Stronger than he should even been since he's only part Gili."

"Ahh, that would explain some things."

"What things!" She was still pacing, and for some reason yelling, even though it happened to be at Glitch, seemed to be the right thing to do.

"Well, Deeg. He threw DeMilo around that truck like he was a rag doll, and he was unscathed after a three story fall through a sheet of ice and into a frozen lake, and he was shot multiple times in the Tower Battle, and he survived a laceration to a major artery that should have bled out in under two minutes."

"So? That's all normal, right? I mean, my dad can throw people around!"

"Deeg, Hank is a robot."

"You know what… none of this matters! You put him in a tin can for over a decade! It doesn't matter if you knew he would live through it! Adora got remarried! Jeb grew up fighting a war! Under no circumstances is this alright!"

"Highness, you can't hate me."

"And why the hell not!"

Conall wouldn't take it anymore. He pounced to his feet and whispered to DG in the lowest possible tone he could summon, trying to keep his thoughts from the ears of the group. "You can't hate me because putting him in a tin suit for ten years brought him to you. You can't hate me for something that you're grateful for. Do your best Highness, it seems easier to find a scapegoat then just accepting the truth. But in your heart of hearts you're thanking me for giving you the only man you will ever love.

And for the second time that day, Conall's nose was broken. This time by a right hook that her father (both Robo and human) would be proud of.


	9. It Begins

Cain didn't ask. He wanted to—oh, how he wanted to. But, he kept his mouth shut.

He'd stepped back in the room to an irate DG storming out, and Conall in more pain than when Cain had hit him. (If that was possible). Glitch had Raw by the shoulders and was hauling the now snarling pacifist towards the door. Cain watched the scene in front of him, horribly confused. But when he saw the rage in DG's eyes, that confusion gave way to wrath. Cain stepped forward to finish what DG had started, but she grabbed his hand on her way out the door and tugged Cain along behind her.

"We're leaving here Tin Man. Now."

He looked over his shoulder to Az, hoping for a clue, but she had the same rage in her eyes that DG had in hers and chose to not be forthcoming. Conall came bursting out of the room they had just left, shouting, "I'm sorry Highness!"

Cain skidded to a stop, forcing DG to turn and look at him. He almost asked her right then. Asked what had her what had everyone so angry so fast. He saw her better then. What he had seen before as only rage was more than that. There was grief in DG's eyes, with tinges of pain and embarrassment laced through. Cain felt like she was having a hard time looking at him because of whatever Conall had said.

Cain raised his free hand to DG's cheek and brushed away the tear that had slipped from her eye when Cain stopped her from walking away. She was scared now. She was scared that Cain was going to be mad at her for smacking around his cousin, scared that he was going to be disappointed in her.

"'I won't hurt them. I won't betray them.' Those were your words, Con. And like I always do, I believed you."

"I lost my temper Wy. I didn't lie!"

Cain stepped away from DG and strode to Conall with a lightness that DG hadn't seen before. "I'll love you like a brother 'til the day I die, Con. But you are a manipulative son of a bitch, and I love you so much I'll let you do it to me, but not to her. Never to her."

"Wy. I didn't mean to."

"You never mean to Con. But you were bred to do whatever you had to do to protect the Northern Guild. I respect that, and I can only imagine what would have happened to these people if you weren't leading them through the War. But I just realized something. I don't have to follow you anymore."

Conall stepped forward, trying to put his hand on Cain's shoulder and do something that would quell the spread of panic in Conall's own eyes, but Cain knocked his hand away. "I never was a Gili, not really. But you needed me around, and so around I stayed. And now there's no war, no threat to your life, and the debt I've been telling myself I had to pay for decades, is now paid. We go our separate ways. You don't hunt me down for being a traitor, and I don't beat you for making her cry."

Cain clapped him on the shoulder and just walked away. Conall tried to grab Cain's shoulder and force him back around, but Cain just shrugged it off once again.

He walked back to DG, whose expression of pain was rapidly dissolving to pleasure. Cain wrapped his arm around her shoulder and tugged DG snug against his side. DG put her arm around his waist and did her best not to blush.

DG wasn't entirely sure if Cain was comforting her, or trying to increase the look of abject panic on Conall's face. It was as though he was wondering whether or not Cain's body had been taken over by some foreign personality. It was unheard of for Cain to blow off anything resembling duty, but then, as though he could feel her doubt, Cain squeezed her a little bit tighter.

He casually leaned over and whispered in her ear, "I would do anything for my family Deeg, but part of being family is that they're willing to do anything for you too. It's been a very long while since Conall was willing to fight in return. And it took me a new family to see that." He pecked a kiss to her temple before he pushed open the door to the village outside.

Yeah, there was nothing at all to be done about the blush now. And at this moment, with Wyatt Cain's arm wrapped around her, Conall could kiss her ass.

Standing outside the door was the man from before, the one with the comforting smile that had been resigned at the sight of them without Conall. "So, I take it you're leaving?"

"No reason to stay, Finn. And plenty of reasons to go."

"Personally, I don't believe the rest of us should be punished because Conall is an ass." Cain snorted in amusement, but kept walking towards where their horses were being fed. "And yes, I am allowed to say such a thing, because it's true. I'm actually surprised it took you this long to notice. Though, considering what a trusting boy you are I suppose I shouldn't be _that_ surprised."

Glitch snorted at the thought of a trusting Cain, and Finn turned to retort, "You suppose that joining your little band in the first place wasn't an act of trust, headcase?"

"It wasn't trust. He just didn't want us to get eaten by Papay."

Finn looked over at Cain like he was a complete nincompoop. However, there was nothing but love to this look. Conall had looked as though he demanded more from Cain, but Finn just wanted him to be happy, no matter how stupid he was.

"You know Wyatt, at some point you're going to actually have to _verbalize_ that you like these people. I know you're a man of action, but there is something to be said for words. Like, I don't know, actually saying hello to you favorite family member when he sees you for the first time in about a decade rather than just taking the hug like it's some form of torture."

Cain just rolled his eyes and kept walking. "Oh come on, Wyatt! You used to be more fun."

Glitch snorted again, "Now that one, I definitely don't believe. How could he possibly be any more fun than he is now?"

Finn released a deep chortle at Glitch, and tossed his arm around him as he replied, "I do quite like this fellow! Come now, Wyatt. Of all the ridiculous things that Con could say to make you finally disown him, you don't have to go running off. Not at suppertime, at least. Your horses need to rest and so do your people Wyatt. I mean it! Just look at the size of this fellow here with the sense of humor. I could snap him like a twig. And look at dear Princess Azkadelia, she has no meat on her bones! Would you lead them off when they should be eating supper?"

The whole group giggled at that one, and Finn seized his chance to keep prodding while he had the group on his side. "Just think about it: dinner, dancing, and all those people who knew Wyatt in those awkward years before he had a gun. How could you run off now?"

"No, Finn. We'll be heading on our way. We've got places to be and not a lot of time to get there."

Finn just sighed. "Well, I suppose it's a good thing I had your packs stuffed with more travel friendly food and one of the Fae who's gifted with animals strengthen your horses for the ride." He said it as though the words were some great burden, but there was a lilt of laughter to it as well.

Cain didn't flinch at the announcement and just kept striding towards the horses. "Oh come now Wyatt! You could at least appear a little surprised that got everything ready because I knew you and Conall were going to start yelling at one another and have another falling out."

"We didn't"

"But you're leaving with that twinkle in your eye that you only get when you've smacked him around."

"He didn't smack him around, Finn. I did."

Finn stopped dead in his tracks, dragging Glitch to a stop with him and nearly choking him. "Highness, you hit him?"

"Actually, I'm pretty sure I broke his nose."

Finn stared at the back of DG for a moment, looking her tiny frame up and down. Then he just laughed. And laughed. There was something infectious about his laughter, such joy in the sound that he managed to banish whatever anger they had been holding on to.

"You broke his nose? Oh, Highness, I wish I had been there to see it. Though, I'm surprised that you got Wyatt out of the room before he added a few more broken bones to Con's list."

"Wasn't worth it, Finn."

"All the times you've beaten each other, and this is the time it wasn't worth it? Why?"

"I'm done with him Finn. He's not worth beating because as far as I'm concerned he's not my brother anymore."

There was a crack in the air, as though the sky was being ripped open. Cain pulled DG to the ground and threw himself on top of her to protect her. There was a blinding white light, and though Cain had his gun out and the Fae were all reaching for weapons, it would do them no good when they couldn't see what they were shooting at.

It took a moment for their eyes to adjust, but when they did, Cain's eye fell on a teenage boy with white hair jutting out at all angles and bow strapped to his back. The boy grinned like it was all some grand game and took a knee before Cain. "Hello, My Lord."

"My… who are you? How did you get here?"

The boy's grin grew and he said, "I am Conquest, Milord. And I am here because you released me."


	10. I Saw the Sibyl in a Jar

"You're...who?"

"Conquest, sir." When the group just kept blankly staring at him, the boy smirked some more, loving to have all this attention focused on him. "I'm The Horseman of Conquest, sir. You summoned me, so here I am. Now, if you'll excuse me, I must be off now."

"Off! Off where?" Cain kept his gun aimed at the boy as he moved up from his slightly awkward position on top of DG. The boy stayed on one knee, looking far too pleased with himself.

"How much of an explanation are you looking for, sir? Because I recall your grandmother yelling all about me and my vices when she found out you were becoming a Tin Man."

The blood drained from Cain's face and his gun started to shake. "This isn't possible."

Conquest rose from his knee and jauntily replied, "And yet, here I am. I shall be on my now. Don't worry though, we will be seeing each other." In another blinding white flash, he was gone.

The whole crowd was stunned for a moment, all except Cain. "Get the girl, Finn."

"What?" Finn shook himself, trying to come back after such a random occurrence.

"Go get the girl who brought us here in the first place! We were on our way somewhere and we have to get there. Now!" Finn froze for a moment, but Cain just shouted at him again to get going, and off he ran. Cain dashed to the horses to calm them, and told his companions to mount up. No one dared demand an explanation when Cain had that look in his eyes.

Finn was back in a flash, jogging to them with the wide-eyed girl in tow. Az was particularly impressed by the fact the fact that the girl didn't ask any questions. She simply stood next to the bundle of horses and asked, "Where am I sending you?"

Cain motioned Glitch forward, leaving him to pull out the wretchedly old map and explain where they were headed. The girl took it all in, completely unphased. Part of Az wished that this girl hadn't lived such a life that emergency transports with no explanation were common to her. "I can put you down in a field in the general area, but you'll have to find the exact location yourselves. Will that be good enough?"

"It's better than we could do on our own, kiddo. You have my thanks. Mount up Zipperhead." Glitch flashed a look to DG, wondering whether or not something had finally broken in Cain's brain. DG shrugged her shoulders with a look in her eyes that Glitch knew meant, 'It's Cain. We go where he goes. Broken or not.' Glitch smiled at the little girl who would be transporting them, and climbed atop his horse.

The girl closed her eyes and drew a deep breath, slowly raising her arms to her sides, and in a flash of white light they were gone. The girl had done good work. They were far to the north of where they had been moments ago and DG could feel the bite of the cold in the air seep through her jacket.

The moment they were settled in at their new location, Az and DG both tore off in the same direction, feeling a magical call pull them through the rough landscape of the northern OZ. Just like the faith they'd placed in Cain earlier, the group extended the same belief in the girls, assuming that their mad dash through the trees was for good reason. After about twenty minutes of hard gallop they found themselves breaking out of trees and upon a cold stretch of moor.

The moor slopped drastically down until it became trees once again on the far side and then stretched on in unbroken forest so far Cain thought he could see the edge of the OZ. But here on the plateau overlooking the great valley was the gateway that had been calling the Gale sisters; a ring of standing stones. They were old, any fool could see that, but even Glitch, who had not a drop of magic in his blood, felt his hair stand on end at the mystic fire pulsing through this place.

Az slid from her horse and stood at the edge of the circle, feeling her bones hum with the magic laced through the air. "This place is ancient. The magic that built this is older than I thought magic could be. The level of skill it would take to create something like this is … unbelievable."

"Az, they're rocks. They look like rocks. They don't look like magic. So why are my bones jumping out of my skin?"

"They are rocks, DG. But they're also the moorings for a huge spell, that's why you can feel the magic." Az walked in a circle around the stones, occasionally reaching out her hand and running it through the air, feeling something other than air run past her skin. DG trailed after Az, preferring to keep her hands to herself and just stare at the faint ripples of magic that she shouldn't be seeing. Whatever was happening to her caused her magic to grow to a point where she was beginning to see the spell in the air around her. However, DG thought this wasn't the moment to share that detail.

"So, Highness. Is this what we're looking for?"

"I have absolutely no idea, Cain. I can tell you that whatever exists inside these stones is a huge bit of magic. But I can't tell you what will happen when we step inside."

"Alright. Stay here, I'll be back." Cain drew his gun and walked into the circle of stones, and vanished. He didn't even give them enough time to argue about how stupid it was to walk into a spell without at least one witch along to help. Az cursed under her breath about how she hoped that the infernal Sibyl could explain whatever had Cain so agitated. To see him bothered wasn't helping the general stress level of everyone else.

DG stepped for the circle, but Glitch interrupted, "He does have a point, Deeg. There could be something dangerous in there, and it would be prudent to wait for him to give us the all clear." DG just stared at Glitch with disbelief. He'd never said anything so rational and spineless before. Glitch just smiled and replied, "Somebody had to say it. Just to we won't be lying when we tell him we thought about it before we went charging in." Raw snorted at Glitch's logic and walked past them all and into the circle.

Inside, they all met the same strange sight. DG would later compare the room to Jeannie's lamp, which no one would understand, but she couldn't help any opportunity to make Major Nelson jokes. It was beautiful, she had to give it that. There were shelves full of books, that somehow DG could tell changed their contents to suit the Sibyl's mood. There were low, comfortable couches, rich fabrics, instruments, easels, pillows strewn everywhere, looms, and no windows showing the outside world.

On the far side of the room sat a woman more beautiful than movies would even think possible. Her dress was Greek, and the white fabric offset her dark complection, making her skin glow. Glitch was sitting at her feet staring at her, and DG would have sworn there was drool. Raw was curled up next her on the sofa, purring while she stroked his ears. However, Cain was tensely crouched in a chair across the circle, nursing a glass of the OZ version of scotch.

Az tumbled in behind DG and they grasped hands before walking across the room as though this wasn't an entirely unnatural occurrence. They made it parallel with Cain before the Sibyl bothered to look at them, and that sight made them stop cold. Her eyes were black. Pupil to cornea her eyes were blacker than pitch. DG gripped Az's hand tighter until she felt the light blossom between them, giving her the strength to speak.

DG stuck her chin and out and said in the most defiant voice she could summon, "'I have seen with my own eyes the Sibyl hanging in a jar.'"

The Sybil replied, smiling, "'and when the boys asked her 'What do you want?' She answered, 'I want to die.' Eliot was so supremely talented, don't you agree?"

"You aren't in a jar. And you aren't withered up from millenia of life as punishment for refusing Apollo."

"Am I not? If you would care to shift one of my tapestries you would look out a window and find yourselves shrunk down and hanging within a jar, though I confess I have been moved to the Czech Republic, rather than Greece. I am in a shop where the man doesn't know what he owns. As for my appearance, when the man saw me who wrote those lines, I was withered beyond any recognition."

"Why aren't you anymore?" The Sibyl just quirked her eyebrow at DG, and then she understood. "But they said all that was left of you was your voice, that you withered away into nothing. How could you…?"

"Highness, Apollo can undo much when you swear to share his bed. He keeps me here to remember my new vow."

"But ... you made vows as a priestess not to do, ya know, stuff."

Sibyl just laughed, amused at DG's innocence and naievity about such subjects. "Darling, after _you_ spend several millenia being pursued by a man, we can then have a chat about my decision. Given enough time almost anyone can make themselves endearing."

DG just stared at the Sibyl, having a difficult time accepting the reality of happens after stories end. Az squeezed her hand a little bit tighter and asked, "What have you done to them?"

The Sibyl kept scratching Raw's ears and smiled again. "I did nothing. This is one of the side effects of bedding Apollo. He changes his women to make them worthy of epic poetry. This is typically what happens when men come to visit me."

"Then why is Cain over here drinking rather than over there with you?'

"Because dear, I have no effect on him."

"Then why is he drinking?"

"Because he didn't like how I said hello."

DG couldn't take it anymore and lost her temper. Various objects around the room exploded from the flare of temper laced with magic that erupted from DG. (Another talent she wasn't supposed to possess). Rather than keep spontaneously exploding things, DG tossed Glitch and Raw away from the Sibyl and advanced on her. "It's time for real answers. Not vague, not unknown, something real, something factual. Now."

The Sibyl smiled again, content in the frailty of DG's threat considering her own immortality. DG was getting irritated with this reaction. "Cain isn't affected by me because he's older and more powerful than I am. Soon enough Raw and Glitch will be the same, but they're not quite there yet. Also, Cain happens to be nursing a scotch because I told him the truth about what you came here for, and he is having difficultly adjusting."

DG grumbled under her breath and decided that she was done with the Sibyl. She whirled around and demanded, "Cain! What is going on!"

Cain downed the rest of his shot and then reached over to the bottle and filled the glass again while he said, "Deeg, how much to you know about religion in the OZ?"

"Other than hearing soldiers swear? Not a thing."

Cain looked up into her eyes, but he couldn't hold her gaze. He ripped his eyes away, and turned to Raw, who was coming back to himself because of the jolt of hitting the wall.

"Don't worry Cain, Raw tell DG." He wrapped his paw around DG's hand and tugged her to sit on the small coffee table in front of Cain. "OZ have one religion, but many factions. Each guild worships in their own way, fight over method and principle, but the Ancients are same.

"There are three. Raw's people know them as Fairy Spirits, voices in the air, and light that comes in visions. Rarely bodies. Munchkins believe inhabit bodies of heroes, protect the people. DG's people see them human. Men with legs and lives.

"Kern is farmer, belongs to fields, brings peace. Bo is mariner, belongs to sea, brings war. Ak is woodsman, belongs to forest, brings balance."

"Ok... but Cain, why does this matter?"

Cain cleared his throat and continued. "We have a legend that these Ancients have a habit of wiping the OZ clean every few hundred years. Whenever they grow displeased with a particular Guild or the country as a whole, they get rid of it. Most people consider it a silly superstition, just ancestors trying to explain what they didn't understand. Plagues, earthquakes, floods, all made out to be punishments from on high.

"The OZ as we know it was created a few hundred years ago by a massive war, completely destroying the dictatorship that was in power. Your ancestor, Dorothy Gale, slipped from the Other Side and joined forces with Ozma, the first queen of your dynasty. Dorothy married a beloved general, Ozma married a second son of A Gili chief. Then Dorothy's son married Ozma's daughter, and resolved any conflict there was lingering between the people.

"Deeg, the Priestess in my community told stories about how Dorothy Gale was an Ancient reborn, come to remake the world." Cain shook his head at his own words. "I always believed that a man should do for himself, Deeg. I never paid much mind when the Priestess started talking about a man's fate belonging to anyone but himself. Glitch would know the story better."

"You got most of it right Tin Man. Well, the story that the crown circulated, anyway. Dorothy Gale slipped from the Other Side straight into the prison where the dictator, Pastoria, had caged the great rebel leader, Ozma. Dorothy Gale broke the enchantment on Ozma, and they escaped back to the resistance, where Dorothy Gale became Ozma's right hand. Ozma's General led the troops in a final stand against Pastoria, but for all their efforts to stop him, it was Pastroia's own general, Xavier, who ended it. On the day of the last battle he could take the evil no more and killed Pastoria himself. Without Xavier to lead them, Pastoria's army just laid down their weapons, and ended the regime."

"I'm going to assume that you told me about all these people because Dorothy wasn't the only reincarnation running around?"

Az interrupted, "It's not exactly a reincarnation Deeg. They're more like... continuations. Every time they come they're a new individual person, but bits of their lives before seep through. At least that's how it's been explained in the histories."

"Why in the world did this get you up in arms Cain?"

"Lesser spirits follow around the Ancients, Deeg. They serve them."

"So?"

"The men laid down their arms without Xavier because he had the spirit of conquest following him. It was by Xavier's sword that Pastoria built an army, without his strength the empire would crumble."

"…the boy with the white hair. He called himself conquest … he said that part of you knew him already."

"I knew pieces of the story from when I was a boy. But, I don't believe in things like this. It's not possible. But I walked through the door, and she, she called me Ak." At this point DG reached out and downed the rest of Cain's scotch while the group dealt wrapped their minds around this moment.

"So. You're, a ... continuation, of one of the creators of the OZ."

"So I have been told."

"Assuming they always come around together," she waited until Glitch nodded his head to affirm, "that would make Glitch, Bo; and Raw, Kern. But why, why would they feel the need to come around again?"

They all looked at one another, and no one had an explanation. "The Witch. You knew she was coming and so you came to break her hold on the OZ." The Sibyl decided it was her turn to offer explanation. "Before you came you left orders that it was time for the OZ to be wiped clean again, because you didn't think the land would ever recover from the memory of The Witch. You are far more merciful in these lifetimes than you were in your former ones, so the lesser spirits are assuming their orders still stand."

"Orders?"

"They're going to destroy the OZ. Ak has the power to release Conquest, Bo will release War, Kern will release Famine, and you, my darling Lorelei, will release Death. And then the OZ will be destroyed."

"Lorelei?"

Az leapt to her feet and started muttering, "No, no, no, no, no. This is not possible."

"Az, Lorelei?"

Again, the Sibyl did that damn smile. "The mother goddess. In a basic Other Side translation, she is Isis. The land, the root of all life, and thus the only one who can take it all away. When you came a few centuries ago to create the OZ as Ozma and her band, you only came _using_ the powers of the lesser spirits that follow you. Now you've gone and set them free to exercise their own will and wreak destruction. It's going to be terribly exciting."

"Terribly exciting! You're telling me that some previous version of me sent out the Four freaking Horsemen of the Apocalypse to destroy the world that we just saved!?!?"

"Exactly."

"How do we stop it? How do we call them back?"

"You can't call them back. On your birthday in six days, the Horsemen will either all be free and wipe the OZ clean, or they won't and all will go back to as it was before."

At this point Cain had finally shaken out of his shock and jumped to his feet as well. "But only Conquest has been released. The others are still caged."

"Until you release them. And you will release them. One by one you'll each decide that what you hold most dear isn't worth the fight. When you do that, a Horseman will come forth to wipe clean the world you have just disavowed." Cain furrowed his brow in confusion, and the Sibyl continued. "Your brother, who may have been a fool, but still tried to do his best by you. You turned on him. You turned on family, which is the most important thing in the world to you."

"I didn't turn on my family! This is my family!"

"They're very sneaky spirits, Cain. They'll find a way in, whether you mean to let them in or not."

DG grabbed Cain's hand and started back for the door. They'd heard enough. It was time to save the OZ again.

Raw paused for a moment before he left the room; he whispered to the Sibyl, "Do we save the OZ? You are a seer. Do we stop them?"

"That, Viewer, I don't know. Not I, nor the Mystic Man, nor any seer, nor any spirit that has walked the earth, knows how this week will end. Either life will begin anew, or it won't."

"How do you not know?"

"These are things that have never happened before. You're doing things that in your former lives you never would have dreamed of. The story is changing all around you, and I don't know how it will end. Be careful though. As the Horsemen find their way out, you'll find yourselves behaving more and more like you used to, and then you will not like how the story ends."


	11. Flashback

Cain was drinking.

Cain did not drink. He said it made a man behave like a dog, and led you decisions you regretted the next morning. Sure, he would take a sip during a toast, but the rest of that glass would remain untouched. Cain liked to blame it on all the drunk people he had arrested in his career, but that wasn't it. His best friend had been beaten to a pulp by his drunk father when they were young. Even after all these years when the smell of alcohol got too thick on the air, all Cain could see were the bruises down his best friend's back.

And yet, Cain was drinking. They'd been outside the Sibyl's jar for only a few moments and all DG wanted was to be in her mother's arms and her make this go away. She drew a breath and closed her eyes to steady herself, and when she opened them again she was in Lavender's reception room. Somehow she'd carried them all there with a wish, another leap in skill and power that she wished she didn't understand.

They'd told Lav and Ahamo all about this new twist and fate, and like the quintessential mother, Lavender sent them all to bed. DG knew that her mother would be up until dawn discussing with various historians and Priestesses, and she would give the summation of any important details in the morning. Lav's attempt to protect them wouldn't grant them any sleep though.

So here was DG sneaking into the family sitting room, with Cain's back to her as he stared out at the night. He was in his shirtsleeves again, having fled his bed so distraughtly that he'd left behind his jacket, fedora, and gun. The white light drifting in from the city enhanced the line of him, making him look more like one of the glistening marble statues DG had seen in her art history class than any human man. Though she had been expecting to see the whole group in here, maybe even Ahamo taking a break from the scholars, that part of that Conall had gone and made her feel ashamed of was grateful it was just him.

"Where are the others?" Cain started at the sudden sound, and that took DG back even more than the drinking.

"They couldn't stand sitting anymore, so they're trying every method they can think of to evesdrop on the Queen's meeting." His shoulders tensed when DG spoke and didn't leave to join the rest of the group. He was drinking, and he was jumpy, and her presence didn't soothe him. These were all new events to her and she wasn't enjoying any of them.

"So..." Excellent DG, just excellent. This is really the extent of things you can think to say to him? It's Cain! Just open up your mouth and say something. Anything! She tried to speak again and actually choked on a jumbled sort of mumble. Maybe talking wouldn't be the best sort of thing right now. Who really needs words anyway? Action. Action was the way to go.

DG stuck out her chin and strode over to the spot Cain had staked out by the window and just stood next to him, letting her shoulder brush up against his arm. This should signify her willingness to let him stew in silence if he so chose, but if he wanted to something so ridiculous as actually communicate his feelings rather than bottle them, she would be here to listen. Considering the rather nice conversations they'd been sharing and the fact that a few hours before they'd discovered that they'd been friends for several lifetimes, she assumed that Cain wouldn't put up as much of fuss as he usually did.

She should know better than to assume when dealing with Wyatt Cain.

Cain flinched away from the slightest hint of DG's touch, and she was beginning to think it had something to do with her. Cain turned and walked away from DG, downing the scotch in his hand that he had been ignoring and walking to the bottle to fill it up again.

"You don't drink." He kept ignoring her and pouring. "Cain, you don't drink. And you don't let your friends run off to do break several laws without you to protect them. Inside a palace or not." Yup, still ignoring her. "And now you're pretending that I'm not here!"

DG stormed after him and grabbed his shoulders, twisting him around. Her arms wouldn't have done the trick, but the force of her magic flung him with such might that his glass slipped from his hand, and startled him enough that he caught her eye.

It was awful. Cain had the haunted look to him that he hadn't had since the very moment he stepped out of his tin suit. "Wyatt, what's wrong? Tell me what's wrong!"

DG had the briefest of thoughts that it was time to tell Lav that her powers had grown beyond her ability to control and maybe they should be asking these late night visitors, who were telling the Queen all about their former lives, some more specific questions about what sort of powers DG should be on the lookout for. Because at this moment, DG, princess of the Realm, was reaching in the mind of Wyatt Cain, Tin Man, and seeing in broken fragments exactly what was haunting him. She was fairly certain of two things at this moment: 1) No was supposed to be able to see a memory so vividly without mechanical interference, and 2) Cain was going to be pissed.

She was kissing him. Only it wasn't her, and it wasn't him. She was experiencing it, but it felt like the sensation was coming through a filter. The kiss was messy and hasty, like they'd spent too long putting this off, and if they stopped to think about what on earth they were doing they would stop themselves again.

Her skin felt like it was on fire, lighting up each time his hands clenched on to her arms. Ozma's arms. Not DG's arms. She needed to remember that. This was not Wyatt, and this wasn't DG. It was Xavier's mouth devouring Ozma, Xavier spreading fire up and down Ozma's spine, and Xavier catching Ozma when her knees gave out beneath her and carrying her to a bed in a trashy hotel far from Central City.

Some part of DG could feel her body standing in a room next to Wyatt, looking into his eyes and conducting possibly the worst invasion of privacy he could imagine. These weren't even Cain's memories he was having to suffer through, they belonged to a former life and now that Conquest was roaming free, just jetsam on the tide of the mind finding its way to shore. However, part of DG desperately wanted to ignore the reality she was tied to and sink into this memory.

"Stop..." It was breathy, and though the voice had the pitch and tenor of Cain, it wasn't him. She felt Ozma desperately try to ignore him, kissing him harder and pulling him back down on top of her. "Stop ... we can't do this, Oz." She kissed him again, leeching the words out of his mouth.

"No! You have a husband. You have a daughter. We can't do this to them." DG recoiled at the sudden influx of reality. She knew Ozma had married a Gilliken prince, but in the heat of this moment that had fled her mind. This was an affair. She had cheated on her husband with Cain. She felt sick to her stomach.

"They don't have to know, Xavier. In the morning you ride off to protect the border and no one has to know that anything happened." He shook his head and began to pull back from her, but she seized his lapels. "Don't think about them. Think about us. Think about all the time and all the love we've _wasted_! I just want one night with the man I love Xavier."

He chuckled. He was actually laughing at her in this moment. "This isn't about love, Oz. We're not capable of things like that, you and I. We fit together too perfectly to ever really walk away, but don't make this about love, it's not in us."

She wrapped her hand around his face and stared him down. "If I loved anybody, it would be you."

"And if I loved anybody it would be you. But we don't. And we're not going to trade your marriage for something less than that."

He climbed off the bed and went to retrieve a jacket that had dropped t the floor sometime in the kissing, but she kept staring at the ceiling. She whispered, "I want you," and he froze.

He very slowly turned back around to meet her eyes and said, "What?"

"I don't know what love is supposed to be, and I don't know why we're not like normal people. But I know that I want you, and I know that's enough."

He was on her in a second, as the kisses got more violent and tense, knowing they were doing wrong and not caring anymore. DG started to lose her grip on the memory, feeling Cain fight back with magic that this lifetime didn't possess. The reverb of Cain throwing her out of his mind sent her sliding back a few steps, and Cain couldn't stop himself before reaching forward to stop her from falling.

His arm wrapped around her waist and his fingers intertwined with hers for a moment before he dropped the connection like he'd burned. "That's why I'm drinking. I keep seeing stolen glances, and covert kisses, and all the times they met in that damn motel room! It's on a constant loop in my head! I stopped fighting it, because when I try and make them shut up I catch glimpses of when he played with her daughter, and took her husband out to dinner. He was best friends with her husband, did you know that? He loved her husband like a brother. Drinking makes the feelings less intense."

DG reached out to hold Cain's hand and comfort him, but stopped herself before she touched him. "But they didn't love each other."

"They didn't love anybody. They weren't all friends out of love, Ozma, Xavier, Dorothy, and her husband, they felt like they belonged together. Love had nothing to do with it. They didn't experience the regular run of human emotions. They didn't feel it when people died, or when their children were born. They felt survival and need. The things animals feel, Deeg, not what makes you human!"

Cain put his hand to his head, as though the memories were pounding on his skull to be set free. "I don't understand it! We feel the whole gamut of emotion. We're completely human, and it's almost as if they didn't get it quite right last time. The Sibyl said how they've never been merciful before, I don't understand why they would want to be as human as we are."

DG wound her fingers through Cain's before she could stop herself, and all she could think about was how touching Cain didn't feel twisted like Ozma kissing Xavier had. Touching Cain felt right. He didn't pull away this time, but he looked down at their hands with sadness in his eyes.

"I don't where he ends and I begin, Deeg. All my feelings should be my own, because they've been more complicated in the last month than anything he ever felt in his whole life, but I don't know. Maybe it's just my soul trying to process his feelings in a way that I would understand. I don't know if he's trying to live through me, or if I've got what his emotions would have been if he had been human. I just don't know."

She couldn't help herself. She had to know. He was going to be pissed as all hell, but she would never forgive herself if she didn't do it.

DG reached up and lightly kissed Cain. It was just for a moment, not long enough for him to tense up and pull away, but enough that DG now knew for certain what Wyatt Cain tasted like.

She pulled back and softly licked her lips, soaking in his taste for a moment before giving Cain a small smile. "You don't taste like him. I know that if we had never known about these people, I never would have doubted what I feel, and I don't doubt it now. I don't know if what we're feeling was born of someone else's life, but I know that you don't taste like him, and that you don't look at me like he looked at her.

"For me that's good enough." DG slipped past the Tin Man and back to her room.


	12. War

Az guided a rather wobbly DG from her bedroom to the royal study. Lavender had sent her in to wake DG once they believed that Lav and all the various historians and Priestesses she had summoned, had finally all the pieces put together. DG _had_ been asleep, but the sleep wasn't so much sleep as it was tossing about as she fought against her own nightmares.

Az had shaken her awake, and wrapped her in a hug when she couldn't stop shaking. "Deeg, what's wrong?"

The floodgates ripped open. DG had never been one to give information without prodding or significant blackmail, so Az hadn't been expecting such a response from the question. DG just sobbed out the entire story, from the sudden bursts in power, to flashes of memory that weren't hers, to rooting around in Cain's mind last night, and finally to her own tortuous dreams.

"The memories would jump all over the place Az! Ozma'd be tucked in bed with her husband, and the little girl would run in in the morning and bound onto their bed. Then the memory would flash to Ozma heading off to meet Xavier in some seedy motel room! Every memory was like that; lie juxtaposed against truth.

"But Az, she was hollow in all of them. Her daughter, her beautiful baby girl would do something so sweet, and Ozma would think about how she had a smile like her father, but she would feel nothing. Her reaction would be perfect, just what it was supposed to be, but she didn't really feel it. Then she'd been wrapped up in bed with Xavier, and there was no love there. She knew there was supposed to be something else, but there wasn't. She spent her whole life as a shell of a person, incapable of feeling anything like a normal person.

"I'm not strong enough to shut her memories out. She's got more of them, and all of them so much more intense than mine. Her powers are taking over mine, her level of control is taking over mine, and her mind is taking over mine. All I can shut out is that hollowness, but it's taking everything I have."

The story had gotten harder and harder for DG to tell, as though whatever strength she gleaned from her semblance of sleep was being bled out of her as she tried to tell Az what was going on. But by the time the last word had left her lips DG looked exhausted again, as though climbing out of bed would be too much for her.

Az called to Jeb outside and the door and waived him over to help her. "Something's wrong, Jeb! We have to get her to mother." In a heartbeat Jeb scooped DG into his arms and darted out of the room. Az wasn't sure how Jeb managed to move faster than she did while carrying a blurry DG, but he made it to Lav's study in record time.

They burst through the door together, and Jeb carried forward a partially conscious DG to their mother. Az took a moment to look around the room, taking in the rather shocked faces of the various historians and Priestess that Lav had gathered, and pausing on the fear in Ahamo's eyes that an Elder Viewer was trying to calm. The Viewer had to be one of the oldest creatures Az had ever seen. His fur was worn silver, and his eyes had gone white and blind. She knew that he must find his way around with the wooden cane by his side, and his incredible Sight. Next her eyes stopped on Finn kneeling in front of Cain. Finn had appeared some time in the middle of the night with the Giliken High Priest in tow, and now he knelt in front of Cain and clutched his shoulder trying to steady him while Glitch sat to one side and Raw sat on the other trying to filter through whatever blurriness had taken control of Cain as well.

That moment was all the chance Az had to take in the scene before all hell broke lose. DG's head lolled to the side at the same moment Cain summoned up the will to check over his shoulder. His eye caught DG's, and suddenly there was a scream and an explosion of power from Cain, tossing everyone in the room from their feet.

The burst of power was beyond anything Cain should have been able to hold if he spent ten lifetimes studying, and had Az not seen it come from Cain herself it would have been easier to accept that the magic was nothing but raw, unfiltered, strength from the most powerful mage Az had ever heard of, and who had just lost control.

Az heard the thud of DG hitting in the floor, and though Az felt like her ribs had been bruised, she scrambled forward to block DG from whatever magic was dripping from Cain. Az threw up a shield between the two of them and then looked at a now standing Cain, who stared back at her with blackened eyes.

Az slowly rose to her feet and looked back at the mage glaring at her from Cain's eyes. Everything about his was different, from the stance to the way he held his head as he met her gaze. DG was still on the floor semi-conscious, but even if she wasn't, there was no way to protect herself from the power in the man controlling Cain.

He was about to speak when Glitch launched himself up from the floor behind Cain and barreled into him before he could do any damage. Cain and Glitch hit the floor with a thud, and then things got worse.

There was a burning flash of red light and then there was a youth in a crimson coat reminiscent of the High General of the OZ. His red hair was cropped close, and a he made a picture perfect salute after he hefted Glitch to his feet.

"No, no, no, no, no, no! How did … why are you … I didn't betray anybody!"

"I wouldn't know anything about that, sir. I was given my orders to come when summoned, and you summoned me. Now I await further instruction."

"Further instruction! Go home! Go back to wherever it is I accidentally summoned you from! Shoo!"

"My apologies sir, but you left instructions that after you summoned me I was to take my orders from Conquest."

"Take your orders from Conquest! What is going on?"

"It's not my place to speculate sir, I just follow my orders."

"Who are you!?!?"

"He's War." Conquest interrupted. He'd popped in completely unnoticed in the flash surrounding the birth of War. Conquest was busy hoisting Cain to his feet. Whatever strength the invader had given him was gone now that he was back to himself.

"War? Why in the world would I have the power to release the Horseman of War? I hate violence."

Conquest looked up at Glitch for a moment as though that was the stupidest thing he'd ever heard. "It's not about adding violence, it's about the removal of peace. War can be psychological, ideological, pathological, or yes, the rather messy shedding of blood. The best wars are those where no one ever picks up a gun. And you ought to understand the value of those Chief Advisor Ambrose – you've conducted a few yourself."

"But I didn't …"

"You believe that violence is a waste. You believe above all else that you can fix things without fighting if you just think them through. Even when you are reduced to combat you do it in such an analytical manner that it looks staged. Violence is beneath you, and betrayed that belief when you tackled Cain."

Az knelt down next to Deeg, putting her hand in her sister's, and still keeping the magical wall between them and the Horsemen. Glitch was busy ranting about the impracticality of it all, while Raw had crawled to tend to the Elder Viewer who was clutching his head, still reeling from whatever agony had ripped through Cain when he lost control. Everyone else in the room was on edge, all the men trying to casually reach for their guns and the Priestess chanting prayers under their breath.

They needn't have worried. War stood patiently, waiting for Glitch to calm down and for Conquest to give the orders. Despite the fact that Az _knew _that War must be the consummate soldier, she couldn't help but be impressed at the difference between the two Horsemen. War kept his expression perfectly schooled while Conquest fretted over Cain like a mother hen.

He gently set Cain down on the couch and put a cool rag to the back of his neck. He was ardently trying to get Cain to release his vice grip on his own head, like he was trying to keep it all bottled inside. "It would hurt less if you wouldn't fight it so."

"If I stop fighting, I stop existing."

"You're being dramatic. You just cease being two independent minds. You back to being one, like you're supposed to be."

"We're not one! We're two different people!"

Conquest tutted at Cain's stubbornness, and then there was a deep chuckle from the Elder Viewer. "You like him. Much better than the others. They were dull, cruel. This form makes like interesting."

Conquest grinned at the Viewer and replied, "Right in one. He's much more human than his previous incarnations. Makes life fun."

Cain looked up from his hands and stared at Conquest like he was insane. "What? Don't look at me like that, I can't help it if you are."

One of the Priestesses walked right over and knelt next to Conquest, sticking out her hand and introducing herself. (She looked like a kid who had just met a storybook character). "Now, you said Mr. Cain is more human than his previous versions? Does that mean that each version has been getting more and more human, or just Mr. Cain is more human than the others?"

Conquest eventually jimmied his hand loose from hers and looked around the room for help like he was being attacked by a crazy person. "Umm, only the last few lives. The rest have been pretty much the same. Though the last one was only moderately human, but Cain is wholly and completely human." The words all came out awkward and halting, like no one had ever asked Conquest a question like this before and he hadn't had the chance to practice an answer.

The Priestess started pacing, and Az could only assume she was one of the more historically inclined. "We've made assumptions about which people in history have been Ancients, and we have noticed a discrepancy between the most recent versions and the oldest. Mind you, some scholars have just assumed that that's because we have more complete records and other references were lost from the record." She kept pacing while the rest of the room kept staring in confusion.

Conquest dropped down on the couch next to Cain and whispered to him, "Why is she asking me questions?"

"It's been my experience with Priestesses that you just let them yell at you until they storm out of the room."

"Cain, you cracked a joke."

Az was still on the ground next to a feverish DG, but she had been paying attention to the conversation. Clarity flashed across Cain's face and he realized where DG was. He went to her side and tried to shake her out of her fog.

"Conquest, get over here! What's wrong with her?"

"She's fighting Ozma, and Ozma is fighting back."

"But I fought, and now I have my mind back! Why doesn't she?"

Conquest hunched over on the sofa and wouldn't look Cain in the eye. "Conquest?"

"She's still fighting. And you stopped."

Cain's hand stopped stroking DG's hair, but he wouldn't look up at Conquest. "He broke you when you saw her. You lost the will to fight, and now he can take you over when the last fight comes. He'll swallow you whole." Cain kept staring at DG writing on the ground, and Conquest summoned up the will to look over at Cain.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry that you'll never be free of him. The Viewer was right, Wyatt. You are my favorite, make no mistake of that." Cain began running his fingers through DG's hair again, and she visibly calmed at his touch.

Conquest murmured something under his breath, a curse in an old language that made the Priestess blush. He dropped to his knees next to Az and across DG from Cain. "You have to promise that you're not going to kill me for this. Well, not like you could actually kill me, or anything, that whole immortality and not really human thing, but, _whatever. _You can't be upset with me when you make it to the other side of this. Whatever part of you lives on in Ak, just promise me you'll stop him from caging me for the next thousand years." Cain looked up from DG, and Conquest took that as his word.

"They didn't mean to get more human. But a dozen or so lifetimes of watching people go through their worst moments, and humanity starts to get you. It came on slowly. They used to be on different sides of the wars, which makes it immensely easier to destroy a country. Then they started to be on the same side, then best friends, and then last lifetime everything went out of control.

"The more time they spent as humans, the more time took a hold on them, and when you're bound to time, you connect with people; you want your life to be filled with people you love because at some point it will end. The last time they came around they committed the ultimate breach. They're really genderless spirits, but two of them embraced their humanity so much they got married and had a child, while the other two spent their lives in some twisted unrequited longing that they wouldn't let themselves actually feel because of their leftover bits of Ancient.

Cain's hand had stopped moving, and he just stared at Conquest like something was being unraveled. "They shouldn't have dabbled in humanity. They shouldn't have done it and now we're paying the price. They're trying to exorcise their humanity by destroying us. They can't be any part human and do what they do. They can't feel. So they poured every human drop they had into us and tried to break us any way they could. Glitch's brain, the Witch, Raw being an outcast, the whole damn war. It was all to burn us out.

"If we betray ourselves, betray what makes us human, then they go back to the way they were at the beginning of time, and our lives will mean nothing. They'll wipe away the OZ just to prove to themselves that they can, that they've destroyed whatever mercy they've developed over time."

The room erupted. Apparently the Priestesses had guessed wrong, and they were tearing through their books trying to understand what they were seeing. Lav and Ahamo sunk to the floor next to their daughters, trying to ignore the feeling that Deeg was doomed to die. The Elder Viewer wrapped an arm around Raw, and Finn handed Glitch a drink.

"What do we do, Tin Man? Even if we survive this, they'll never stop trying. They want us destroyed, body and soul."

Cain ran his hand through DG's hair one more time and then leaned forward and softly kissed her. He whispered something to her in a language older than time that he didn't understand himself, but Az could feel the truth of it echoing in her bones. "She belongs with me. Do you worst, because whatever you do, however you cheat. When I lie down into the dust, my soul will stay here with her."

Cain pulled back and for the first time in hours DG looked up at him with clarity in her eyes. He placed his calloused hands on her temples and watched as the clouds fought to take control again. "Leave her." DG seized as Ozma fought to gain the ground that she had lost. "I'm corporeal, and while I am, and I have his powers, and you're not, I'm stronger than you. Now, leave her!"

DG seized again, and with a scream the fog drifted out of DG, setting her free. She struggled from breath for a moment and then pulled herself up and into Cain's chest. He wrapped his arms around her and held her close.

Cain looked at the shocked faces around the room and said, "Let them come."


	13. Well, That Was Fun

Sorry it took so long. Classes just wrapped up and I thought that rather than dragging this out for several more weeks as I duel with writers block. I figured you guys would appreciate me waiting until I actually got the whole thing written so you could daily updates until the end, rather than getting the story distracted by the homework. Enjoy you terribly faithful people!

* * *

Az knew that her parents were having a bit of a rough day. They'd been up all night puzzling out whatever was taking control of their daughter, only to have one of the Four Horsemen turn up and explain it all to them anyway, rendering their lost sleep completely pointless. It also couldn't help matters much to know that their freshly back from the dead daughter was a lynchpin to the end of the world. (Really, that couldn't be counted as the start of a good day in anyone's book). But no matter how much that must have been bothering them, she was sure that nothing could compare with keeping their mouths shut while Cain had his arm wrapped around DG.

Not that DG was complaining, mind you. She chose to ignore her father's concerned expression and focus on the fact that Cain was brushing his thumb along her tricep while a very excitable priestess was bursting about all the historical theories that had just been disproved. It was the same one who had spoken to Conquest like he was a science fair project. War and Conquest had vanished with all traces of Ozma, and the scholars in the room were thrilled with the prospect of dissecting all they'd learned. They were pacing and discussing, trying to piece together what would happen next.

Az was the only one paying any attention to them, just in case one of them happened to say something that might later prove useful, however unlikely that may be. Raw was calming Glitch down, comforting him with the knowledge that despite War being released, there was no sign of any soul in his body but his own. (That didn't do much to comfort Glitch about War cheating to get released, which was the detail that bothered Glitch more than anything).

The scholars were now debating what it meant that Cain had cast Ozma out, what sort of powers that gave him, and whether it was permanent. The Elder Viewer and Finn had their eyes firmly on Cain, but with two vastly different expressions. Finn looked like his world had just been ripped open (a look comparable to her parents), and like he wanted nothing more than to rip apart whoever had done this to Wy. However, the Viewer watched with something close to intrigue; he was fascinated by whatever had just happened in Cain's mind.

The debate between the scholars had escalated to the point of disgruntled yelling about what was up with Cain. She was vaguely reminded of tutor at this moment and how she always wondered why scholars chose to ignore the most direct route to something and go straight to the vague and complicated.

The doors to the study swung open, seemingly on their own accord, but Az felt Cain use the magic. "Thank you for your help, but I think we have all the information we need. If you'll excuse us we have classified matters to discuss."

Az had heard Cain issue orders before, but he didn't say this in the commanding tone of voice that left no room for disobedience. He just said it. No authoritative tone, just words. And yet, the scholars scampered from the room like children. Wait, there it was, a hint of magic from him that he hadn't meant to release and that had scattered them. Finn and the Elder Viewer didn't feel the pull to scatter, but Finn still felt the need to shut the door manually behind the others, obviously a little unnerved by Cain's new abilities.

The silence held for a moment before Az felt the need to break it. "So, Cain, what's going on?"

"Conquest has been stirring up the people, spreading dissent over the whole of the OZ and across the borders. Now that War has been set free he'll capitalize on the discontent and men will start moving against one another. The Guilds will clash with one another soon, and within a few days they'll be marching on the capital."

Ahamo shifted to put himself between Lav and Cain, not quite trusting the unnatural stillness to him. "How do you know all this?"

"It's the pattern they've always followed. Conquest paves the way with discord, War turns people against one another, driving them to kill, then Famine takes advantage of their weakened state, and Death ends it all. When they never change the plan it's easy to remember."

"Wy, I think he's asking..."

"I know what he's asking Finn, I'm just not sure how to answer him. Conquest was right, I opened the door to Ak, but he can't come in yet. The Sibyl told us that they couldn't come and meet out any sort of destruction until all of the Horsemen had been released. If that time should come, I'll fade into nothing, but until it does, his powers, and the occasional flash of his strategy, are mine."

Glitch calmed down considerably with this new piece of information and bluntly interrupted Cain's explanation. "So, this means you're not going crazy anymore?" If Az had been in range she would have smacked Glitch upside the head, and despite Raw's warning nudge to stop talking, Glitch didn't. "What? This is a legitimate concern! If Cain isn't talking to voices in his head anymore that means I won't be talking to them. Right?"

"Don't worry Headcase, I'll throw the voices out of your head too."

"So, until all four Horsemen are released we have a tactical advantage." It was the first time Jeb had spoken since he stumbled through the door carrying DG, and Az wondered for a moment how in the world he was still standing. He looked exhausted, like one strong gust of wind would send him flying end over end. Much to her shame, it was the first time in days that Az had bothered to spare a thought for the boy. Stranger than that, Cain hadn't seem to think of him either.

He'd bid his son a heartfelt goodbye before he left, but his mind hadn't been his own since he came back. Now that he was himself again, Cain hadn't spoken to Jeb. The boy had started forward to help his father when he collapsed, but Conquest had seen to him, and then he started for him again when Conquest vanished, but Cain's eyes had brushed right past him.

Now he was leaning up against a wall, watching his father with a strange mix of pain and longing in his eyes. His father had just come back from the dead again, fully equipped as one of the most powerful mages in the history of the OZ, and he didn't seem to have time for his son anymore. Az could see the heartbreak in his eyes, and knew that despite the fact the boy would indulge in some drinking as soon as he was allowed out of the room, his resolve to protect them wasn't broken. He'd told his father that the Gale women were like family, and no matter how his father was behaving, Jeb would still take care of them.

Cain hadn't walked over to comfort Jeb. Az mulled this over for a moment while Cain discussed war strategies with Ahamo, Lav, and Finn, and Jeb kept his place along the wall. She added this detail to the fact that Cain wasn't a man predisposed to public displays of affection, and yet his arm was still around her in a conversation with her father. Something was wrong here.

Az kept her eyes on the group of men, but shouted for Raw in her mind. She saw him twitch in the corner of her vision, and communicated her concern as best she could without words. She could tell the two viewers were trapsing around Cain's mind, seeing if Az's concern was justified.

It took a few moments, but the signal didn't come from Raw, it came from the Elder Viewer. Az didn't know how it happened, but she felt his growl in her bones from across the room. She stood up, carefully making her way over to take DG's hand and tug her away from Cain under the guise of needing to talk, but his arm tightened around her as soon as Az flinched at the extra pressure digging into her arm. That's when DG saw it too, and he knew.

Finn, Ahamo, and Lav all dropped to the ground at Cain's feet. Az barely even felt the magic getting used, as though stunning them didn't register as magic use. He was efficient and ruthless, with more power than Az had the ability to sense. And more importantly, this wasn't Cain controlling the magic anymore. He calmly stepped over the unconscious bodies and went to the tray of liquor in the corner. He poured himself a class of scotch and turned back to look at the Elder Viewer, saying, "You are quite impressive. I could barely sense you roaming around inside my mind. It's been several lifetimes since I've come across a reader of your quality. Make no mistake, Raw. You are quite gifted as well, but you lack your elder's subtlety."

"Where is Cain?"

"Oh, don't worry, Raw. He's in here, tucked safely back inside the box where he belongs. And there he'll stay until I see fit to release him."

"But, you can't take control of him! You can't be here until all four of the Horsemen are released! You being here is breaking one of your own stupid rules and you've done enough of that already!"

"But you see Ambrose, I'm not here, he's here, and since he is, in fact, a part of me I'm breaking no rules by exercising control over the rest of him through the piece of me that he carries."

Glitch just stared at him blankly, as though such an affront to logic was too much, even for him. "Don't worry, I wasn't lying when I said I would take care of, as you put it, 'the voices'. They'll have no need to fight with you and Raw like I did with Cain. My presence here will be quite enough to see our goal through, they won't need to force you out like I had to. For you both, the whole affair will be relatively painless. Now, if you'll excuse me ... Conquest!"

In a heartbeat the Horseman was there, looking terribly sheepish. He had felt the moment his true master took control of Cain, and despite several millennia of better judgment, he felt as though he'd let Cain down. A feeling that he knew Ak was going to punish him for.

"Ah, Conquest my boy, where have been off to?"

"I've been, oh ..." At Ak's raised eyebrow (or rather Ak raising Cain's eyebrow, Az had to remember that whatever damage they did to Ak, they would do to Cain also), Conquest dropped to a knee. "My lord, I was with the Horseman of War, issuing your orders for him to lead the Northern Guild against the capital."

"Excellent. War has been most admirable in his service. When will they be ready to march?"

"Two days."

"Two whole days, Conquest? What have you been doing all this time? By this point the road should have been so perfectly paved that Conquest had to do nothing more than whisper in their waiting ears to have them marching. If you'd done your job properly he wouldn't even need to whisper!"

"I apologize, my lord. I didn't mean ..."

"No, Conquest, you never do mean anything do you? You've been coddling this shell, and because of that you've neglected your duties. You should have been here sooner to release the Horseman of Famine without any prodding from me."

Conquest's head popped up and he stared at Ak like he had no idea what he was talking about. "Sir? Raw hasn't opened the door."

"More proof that you haven't been paying attention. Above all, Raw believes in the good of people, and yet he was more than willing to invade Cain's brain to snoop for me. That level of mistrust is a betrayal of his most basic principle.

"Sir, I don't think I could, I mean, isn't that ..."

"Breaking the rules on such a monumental scale that you should be afraid the universe will collapse around you?"

Ak looked at Jeb and finally saw him. He fixed a condescending smile on Jeb, and responded, "Little boy, I am the one who makes the rules."

Jeb snorted. Sweet, terribly respectful and well behaved Jeb Cain, snorted at one of the most dangerous beings in existence. The stress of today must have made him absolutely lost his mind. That was the only explanation. Judging from the expressions on the faces of the only other conscious members of the group, they were wondering how they were going to explain to Cain that the man currently inhabiting his body was the one who killed his son, not him.

"My father always said that if takes a bigger man to obey the rules than to break them. Anybody can win if they cheat."

"Yes boy, I know what he told you. You seem to be missing the pivotal detail where he and I are one and the same."

"That's a load of crap."

"Load of ... crap?" Az was positive that in all of Ak's lifetimes, he'd never been spoken to like this before.

"Yeah, a load of crap. You're just making stuff up to feel better about yourself. You feel like an idiot because you had to resort to cheating to beat a troop of silly little mortals, and now you're justifying to make up for the fact that you apparently have no real power."

Ak started glowing. Power dripped from him, and despite the fact his lifetimes of practice, Ak was currently subject to Cain's body, and Cain didn't respond well to having his honor insulted. Especially if he deserved it. "What, Ak? You're not insulted are you? It's just an observation, a rather astute one considering you are a wretched, spineless cheat, but still."

A flash of power erupted from Ak, aimed straight for Jeb, but as Az tried to throw up a shield to siphon off some of the magic to protect Jeb as best she could, but she didn't need to worry. The eruption stopped midway to Jeb as Ak doubled over on himself and grabbed his head. The man was too stubborn to yell like he wanted, but his groans were obvious.

Jeb dropped down beside him and held out his arms to catch Cain, but he stopped himself from touching until Cain looked up at him and Jeb knew it was his father looking out of those eyes. "Well, that was fun."

Jeb smirked at him and pulled him into a hug. "Hey, old man."

"Do me a favor. Next time I get taken over by an egotistical warlord, don't pick a fight with him."

"I knew that you wouldn't let him hurt me."

"Still. I would prefer it if you wouldn't piss him off."

"Eh, life is more fun this way."


	14. Ride

I have no capacity for responding to reviews, which I'm sure you've all figured out by this point. I know it's terrible form, but I have no earthly idea what to say. I mean, you go out of your way to read my little tale, and I for all the words I have roaming around my head, I don't know how to thank you for that. So I'm afraid that a mere thanks will have to do. And, ya know, another chapter.

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"You humans. You certainly know how to live on the edge don't you?"

"Says the guy who just turned on one of the most powerful beings in existence."

"How is that different than what you just did?"

"I'm not secretive about it"

"Yeah, that makes it better." Jeb laughed at Conquest, suddenly much happier with the whole situation. The moment Cain pushed Ak out of control, the tension in the room cleared, granting air they didn't realize they was being withheld. They took a few minutes to rouse the unconscious and explain what just happened. It took Ahamo a bit longer than the rest of them to accept that Cain was really back in charge, but the fact that Cain was behaving like a gentleman again served to put his mind at ease.

"So, was Ak just making a threat about Famine being released, or was he serious? Because I don't see Famine anywhere."

"Completely serious. Ak'll bend the rules so far that for anyone else they would snap in two, but the rules are too scared of him to actually break. If Ak declared that Raw has set Famine free, then he set Famine free and set him to work. There's no arguing."

"Why the hell not?" DG couldn't help it. Cain had been possessed, she'd been knocked unconscious, the Ancients were cheating, and all she really wanted was to wake up with everything back to normal. Mind you, she had no idea what normal was, but at some point she intended to find it.

"Because Deeg, he's just mean. The others are more apathetic than anything else, and you can talk them out of things. Ak just, _is_. Nothing to be done about it, so you obey or you get squished."

"If that's true, then why are you still here? Won't you be punished?"

"Oh, most certainly. At this point I'm a dead man. Well, as dead as I can get. I'm fairly certain there will be a few hundred years watching stars die at the end of the universe in my near future. But seeing as how, at this point I can't get any more dead than I already am, why not earn my punishment by helping out my favorite humans?"

"But, that sounds fascinating!" Glitch was on his feet with a glimmer of scientific glee in his eyes, and it took Conquest a moment to figure out he was talking about the glib reference to stars.

"Oh it is, but only for about the first twenty times. After that, really anything gets boring. And believe you me, I've spent a couple dozen lifetimes watching the various life stages of stars. It is better than sitting in a box in the black parts of the sky though. I did that for a while too."'

"What did you do to piss him off so bad?"

"I'm not like the other Horsemen, Deeg. Part of conquering is desire; is passion to go out and be more than you are. The other Horsemen simply meet out destruction of some kind. I'm more complicated than that. You can conquer all you want and still manage to not take a life. All they know to want is an end, and all I want is a beginning."

"You belong to Ak because you're different. They think he's the only one who can control you."

"Exactly. Most of the time I simply behave, but every now and again I go off the reservation to the tune of a few hundred years of punishment. Just have to keep things interesting, you know?"

"So, we're being glib now? We've decided that that's the best way to deal with this situation?" Perhaps Ahamo hadn't settled down to be as all right with this situation as they had thought.

"I apologize, sir. It's just been a while since I've had the chance to chat with anyone. I tend to get a little carried away."

"What's. The. Plan."

Conquest looked at Ahamo for a moment before his brow furrowed and he turned to Cain. "You thought I had a plan? This is out and out rebellion. I've never done this before."

"So we just sit here and hope it turns out?" Yes, Ahamo was most certainly not in the land of alright. He was still playing around in the land of blind rage.

"No, Ahamo. I will take care of it." Cain rose to his feet and the two men stared at one another for a moment. Az could feel the tension in the room spike up again and hoped that Cain didn't accidentally release Ak in their standoff. It took Ahamo a beat, but he nodded to Cain, accepting his authority here. It happened begrudgingly, but it happened nonetheless.

"Con, why hasn't the Northern Guild started marching?"

"Partially because I wasn't trying very hard to rile them up, and partially because Conall is a stubborn man who loves you dearly and feels more than a little guilty about how things have been going between you." Cain raised an eyebrow at him, and Conquest continued. "I can't put in a man's heart what isn't there already. If he doesn't have the desire to fight, I can't make a warrior out of him. However, all the men around him are bursting to go. They would be here already if Conall didn't have such absolute control over that Guild. In a few days War will have them so ready to fight that Conall will either lead them or be deposed."

"Finn, what sort of fight are we looking at?"

"It'll get ugly, fast. Your army is exhausted and already spread too thin. Not to mention a good portion of them are Gilis themselves. So if Conall calls them home, you'll lose almost half of your force.

Conquest interjected, "Knowing War, he'll also get to the men of the Western Guild and get them to back down and leave the Capital to defend itself."

"But we've always been loyal to the royal family, what could he possibly do to make us retreat?" Jeb was unnerved that such a disgrace among his people was possible.

"Famine."

"Starvation in two days?"

"Destroying food stores will create the fear that societal order is collapsing around them all over again. They'll be worried that if they leave their families they won't be there when they get back."

"So basically, the Oz military will either lay down their weapons or join the other side."

"Pretty much."

"Fabulous."

Cain ignored Jeb's sarcasm and proceeded, "Then our only choice is to ride north and talk Conall down." The room erupted. There was shouting about how terrible that plan was, all the damage that could be done if Ak took control while Cain was away, not mention the distinct possibility of dying. Lav and Cain were the only people in who group not saying a word, just locking eyes as the storm spun around them.

Eventually their objections calmed to the point they noticed that despite all the anarchy of the last few days, people hadn't really changed. Lav was looking at Cain with all her poised intensity, weighing his plan in the balance, and Commander Cain was waiting for orders from his queen. They were surrounded by anarchy as their world faced destruction, but the two of them were so perfectly themselves in that moment that Az couldn't help but smile.

"With War inciting him do you believe you'll be able to persuade Conall to stop?"

"If Conquest is right about what they can do, then War will only be able to push Con so far. He won't march if I explain it to him, and no amount of tampering would incite his men to depose him. I might not be able to stop them completely, but I can slow them down enough to protect the capital until the deadline."

DG tried to catch her mother's eye, trying to tell her with all the fervor her raised eyebrows could muster that Cain was not to be sent out of her sight. She knew what Lav's answer was when she refused to look at her daughter.

"Do what you must Commander."

Cain bowed his head and was to his feet in a moment. "Finn, Con, Raw, you'll ride with me."

"Ride I can, Commander. Talented is young Raw, but I will better keeping them calm, making them believe."

"He's right," Conquest interrupted, "and he'll be helpful with, you know..."

"Keeping you the only person in your body."

"I was trying to be a little less blunt there, Finn."

"Not a lot of time for not blunt here, kiddo."

"While we're adding people to the list ..."

"No."

"Come on Dad!"

"I wouldn't mind being on that list either."

"You're not coming either, Con."

"But we could be useful! I mean, Conquest is physical proof of the Horsemen, and with you, me, and Conall in one place and on one side, the Northern Guild will have to listen. They won't break the bloodline over this!"

Cain ignored the argument and kept talking. "Highness, Jeb and Conquest will stay with your family, and whatever comes the two of them will see to your safety. Glitch and Raw should be free from any side effects of the release, but in case anything happens, I'm sure Conquest will be able to see it taken care of. Finn and I will escort the Elder and do our best to stop the coming army. If we fail, we'll get word to you and you will have to flee the city."

"What happens if the rules bend again and Death is set free?"

"He won't be Highness." Conquest had slipped back into his good behavior, knowing, like Jeb knew, they wouldn't get an answer from Cain when there were witnesses. "Ak can twist the rules out their right sense when he's here himself, and he can bend them through me, but if I refuse to play along then DG will have to carry out her betrayal all on her own. And I find that unlikely."

If Cain hadn't been about to ride off into a sea of men stoked by War himself, DG would have smiled at Con for the trust.

"Very well, Commander. Ride hard, and go with our blessing."

Finn headed for the stables and Raw followed slowly behind receiving instructions from his Elder on any pertinent visions. Glitch stayed with the royal family, intending to keep DG calm, and leaving Cain to pack the food and be tailed out the room by his boys.

The boys were good for the walk to the kitchen, and they cleared the staff out so he could rummage undisturbed, but they were waiting. "You're not coming. You can pretend all you want, but you're not coming."

"Dad, it'll be better if you have us with you!"

"I know." The two of them had gotten themselves mentally prepped for this argument, and Cain slamming on the breaks right at the beginning was not the route they were expecting this to take.

"So, that means we can come?''

"No, Con. You still can't come."

"But..." Cain put down the bag and wrapped his hands on either side on Conquest's face, forcing his to meet his eyes.

"You have to stop this from happening, Con. She's going have people all around her, pulling her in twelve different directions. You have to make sure that the only voice she's listening to is her own. I need you at her side, keeping her breathing, and keeping Jeb from dying to save her. Because, so help me Con, if I make it alive to the other side of this and they're not standing there, I will become the only thing in the universe Ak is afraid of."

Con just nodded his head, and whispered his promise to Cain. He turned his attention to his son, who despite the fact that he wasn't an immortal Horseman of the Apocalypse, looked like he might actually win this fight. "The Gilis won't turn if all three of us are there."

"I know. We'd have them whipped back into shape in a matter of minutes. We'd stop the war."

"So why won't you let me go!"

Cain put his hands on Jeb's shoulders and wrenched the words out, "Because he'd kill you in exchange. Ak only needs a moment, just one breath where my control slips, and he would bleed you. I won't let that happen. If I'm half the world away when I slip, then it will take him time to find you, and Elder can use that time to bring me back. So I'm going to ride as far and as fast as I can, until I'm free of him."

"But you will come back, won't you?"

"The Elder and Finn, they'll do what they have to do to end this. But no matter what happens, you know that I ..."

"I know. And, well..."

"I know."


	15. Promises to Keep

Not gonna lie to you, I was a little heartbroken today when no one reviewed the new chapter, but I decided to put this new one up anyway, and I realized that apparently I neglected to hit the update button. My bad. So today, as my apology, ya'll get two.

* * *

Wy was pissed as all hell. There was no mistaking that look. Every inch of him screamed that he wasn't in the mood for talking and if he got shot at this moment it would be a welcome relief so he could stop dealing with whatever was going on in his head.

Finn could only assume that DG had gotten a hold of him. Partially because she was at the top of a very short list of people who could get Wy riled up, and partially because there was a feral glint to Wy's eyes that Finn knew meant he had been thinking about doing something not terribly honorable with the blue-eyed child. Blue-eyed girl. Blue-eyed lady? That was a pet name he was going to have to work on before he actually said it aloud, 'cause he was fair sure that calling her girl would make Wy feel more like a dirty old man, and Deeg would kill him for putting any more trouble between her and her future husband. Which was another opinion that they both probably preferred he keep to himself.

They took to their horses and road for the next several hours with no interruptions and no talking. As impressed as he was that the old Viewer kept his seat, he was more impressed that he kept his views on what must have been rattling around in Wy's head all to himself. Eventually both Finn and the Viewer broke down and started exchanging fairly pointless stories just to keep themselves from going mad. (Though trying to have a linear and verbal conversation with a Viewer that strong was a type of madness all its own.)

Everything went smoothly. No getting shot at, no getting chased, no yelling at each other. They finished their ride for the day, ate their meal with little conversation, and had all laid down in the cool night air when Finn couldn't keep his mouth shut anymore.

"So, whadja do?"

"Which one of us are you talking to?" Silence. They were both stubborn men, but Finn let the pause hold, knowing that Wy would break first. Finn dug his heels in rarely enough, but when he did it was like moving a mountain.

"Well?"

"I don't answer stupid questions."

"What did I do when?"

"When you came out of the palace looking like you got interrupted halfway to making your second son." Finn heard more than felt a rock go flying past his head. Well, that was something. At least Wy had acknowledged the presence of other people, and really, at this point, violence was to be expected. Finn was actually rather grateful Wy had at least given him a warning shot before proceeding to bodily harm.

"We weren't, doing … that!"

"Holy hell, Wy! You're a widower and a father, and you're still so straight laced that you can't say sex?!"

"Shut up, Finn."

"What happened?"

"Go to sleep."

"Now, we both know that's not gonna happen, so you can either tell me what happened or I can continue making uncomfortable commentary. You chose."

Wy grumbled for a minute before saying, "She wanted to come, I told her no. That's it."

_He'd gone to his room to change his shirt, grab his coat and hat, and pick up some extra bullets. In the door, out the door, and on the road. Very simple. But then there was DG, standing next to his bed and running her slight fingers along the brim of his hat. Then, well, he wasn't exactly sure what had happened._

_Somehow he'd gotten himself across the room, fisted his hands in her hair, and managed to be bruising her lips with his own, all without realizing how he got there. He'd pulled back and stopped them before he leaned her back over that bed behind her and started something he wouldn't have had the strength to. He'd stepped back, uselessly tried to catch his breath, and then put on his coat._

_"You're kidding me with this, right?"_

_"Nope, kid, I've gotta go."_

_"Like hell! And I'm fairly sure you can't call me kid after where you just had your hands!" He chose to ignore the pesky detail that he didn't realize until that moment where his hands had just been. It wasn't Ak robbing him of his higher brain function, he was sure of that. He almost wished he could blame it on Ak, but this burst of an adrenaline and hormone cocktail that he hadn't experienced since he was Jeb's age was entirely his own fault. _

_"Not like anything, Deeg, I've got to go."_

_"Take me with you."_

_"No."_

_"That's not a conversation, Tin Man! You can't just kiss me, tell me what to do, and ride off! This isn't the 50s!" _

_"Deeg. I'm not telling you what to do, I'm asking you."_

_"No you're not! I have not idea what in the hell you're doing, but it sure ain't _asking _me to do anything!"_

_" Highness, the mouth on you!" _

_"You would know! Gotta tell you Cain, I never took you for a 'snog and leave 'em' kind of guy!" There was just something about DG that made him behave irrationally. Usually he was an intensely controlled man, but the blend of DG standing next to his bed, hair ruffled, lips bruised, and yelling at him made something inside him snap. _

_She was mid-shout when her back slammed into the wall and Cain's mouth was back on hers. She kissed him back, drinking in every last drop of him she could. He was going to go out that door and into a war zone, and she didn't know if she was going to ever see him again. She wanted whatever he could give her, and maybe if she didn't make any sudden moves she would get to keep him. _

_She tried, she really did, but an unbidden moan escaped her and Cain drew back for breath. He didn't rip away from her like he had before, keeping their bodies close together and his forehead resting against hers. "He dropped you like a rag doll, Deeg. And stopping him from killing you all where you stood took more will than I thought I had. He doesn't feel the need to toy with us and make us break like the others do, he just wants us dead. He wants to kill you."_

_He leaned back and looked into her eyes, "I won't let him. I have to protect you and I have to protect the OZ, and if stay around you, I can't do both. And then I'll need Finn to put a bullet in me so he can do what I can't."_

_"Wyatt ..."_

_"I love you, Deeg. You know that. But you need to know that what I'm doing right now, it's for us. So you need to promise me that you'll stay here, where you're safe. Promise me."_

_"I promise."_

_He dropped another kiss on her lips, soft and chaste, and grabbed his hat. He was out the door and out of hearing before she had the chance to drop to the floor and start to sob. _

"Somehow I imagine it's more than that."

"This is going to kill me, Finn. If we pull this off, Ak will see me dead for it. And if he takes me over, then you will put a bullet in me before he can do anything. Either way, I'm not coming back alive." Finn kept his mouth shut. There was nothing to fight against. Wy didn't listen when he was like this, and though he wanted to tell Wy he was being an idiot, some part of Finn knew that he was probably right.

"Did you tell her?" Cain didn't need more explanation. He knew what Finn was asking.

"Couldn't help it." They stopped talking, and after a few minutes Wyatt Cain drifted into a peaceful, Viewer-induced, slumber.

Finn sat there staring up at the stars for an hour before he summoned up the will to ask the question the Viewer had kept himself awake waiting for. "How does it end?"

"Future malleable. Shifting tides of what may be, rolling in and out. If he lives there is a blue-eyed smiles, bearing blue-eyed smiles."

"If he doesn't?"

"Night. Long, cold, night. For us all."

They'd found her on the floor an hour later, having obviously tried to wait until she got it together before they came in. She was still pooled on the floor, but she'd stopped crying. Eventually you reach the moment where you just don't have the strength to sob anymore.

Az nestled in next to her and wrapped one arm around her while another went to stroke her hair. Jeb took the other side and stretched his worn fingers through her hand in his best attempt to comfort. Conquest stood at the foot of the bed, quite unsure of what to do with himself in a situation like this.

"Mom, Dad, Glitch, and Raw are coming up with a plan to defend the city should it come to that. They're really just trying to distract our parents from looking for you, and they know it, but still."

DG kept her eyes on the stretch of wall in front of her, but she didn't feel like pretending anymore. "I don't want him to die."

Jeb squeezed her hand and whispered, "Me either, Deeg."

"So stop him." Wasn't that just like an immortal being with no real concept of time.

"It's not that easy, Con."

"Why not, Deeg?"

"He made me promise, Con. He made me swear that I wouldn't go after him or put myself in harms way. If I betray my promise, I destroy the OZ."

"Well, that is one interpretation."

"And the other would be?"

Con dropped to his knees in front of DG and put his hand over hers and Jeb's. He looked so terribly like Cain that her heart hurt. Jeb was every inch his father's son, there was no denying that, but the lines of his face were longer and softer, something she knew he must have gotten from his mother. Conquest, however, could have been mistaken for Wyatt Cain himself, if only a few years younger.

"Not just any betrayal opens the door, it's a betrayal of what you believe in the most."

"And that would be?"

"Him." The answer was rapid fire, like he'd been looking for it long and hard and was thrilled to finally know the right response. "Well, more that love will save the day, but he _is_ love. You believe in him."

"And breaking a promise to him wouldn't be betraying him, how?" Jeb was frustrated, and talking about going after Cain wasn't helping. He wanted to be riding with them, impending threat of death or not.

"That's up to DG. There's no rule breaking now, only exactly what she considers a betrayal and consciously made. So she needs to ask herself whether to her ,breaking the promise is betraying him, or letting him ride to War without her next to him."

Az just sighed. "He's going to be livid."

"You don't even know what I decided!"

"You're going after him. You're going to follow him to the literal end of the world to tell him that you love him too. The apocalypse be damned." DG stared blankly at Az for a moment, wondering when she got to be quite so easy to read, especially in such intense detail. "Raw knows, you nerd. He almost collapsed when he felt Cain finally say it. After that he knew you'd go after Cain, and he's been trying to tell us is it's the right thing to do for the past hour."

"I, I don't ... I don't know whether to be pissed about the violation of privacy or thrilled that I don't have to convince anyone."

Jeb snorted and hauled DG to her feet, "Go with thrilled, much easier on the nerves."


	16. Voices

So, I took a seven hour exam today, and I've got another on Monday. Which means, that because I just can't study anymore or my brain will explode, I'm going to post this, go watch the new ep of The Mentalist and then write some fanfic to loud music because I think I may have almost killed any connection with my muse after seven hours of civil procedure. Have fun!

a/n: _Italics_ = Cain's thoughts, 'single quotes' = Ak's thoughts, "regular quotes" = well, regular quotes

* * *

They'd underestimated War.

Conall had troops waiting for them in hiding at the border. Gilis with rage in their eyes and hate in their hearts had sent the three of them flying off their horses with their magical gifts and without coming out from behind the trees. It was a powerful burst of magic, very well aimed, and even though Cain felt the build up of the magic before it released, he ignored the voice of Ak telling him what was coming. Ak had been pestering Cain all day, throwing out bits of commentary as they rode north and under no circumstances was Cain going to start listening to him now.

Though, as Cain was face first in the dirt, struggling for breath against his surely broken ribs, paying some attention might not have been a terrible idea. Ak interjected, 'Told you to throw up a shield_._'

_-Not now._

-'You're going to be unconscious in a few moments, and I just wanted to make sure you understand that listening to me isn't a bad thing.'

_-Shut up._

-'No. They're not going to kill you, by the way. They want to, but Conall is certain there's information to be had from you before you go.'

_-Thanks. This is why I keep you around, to find out things that I could have already guessed._

-'No need to be snide, boy. I'm just trying to help. And the sooner you understand that the better off you'll be.'

_-Excuse me for finding it unlikely that the fellow who took over my body has had a sudden change of heart and now wants to help me._

-'There's no change of heart involved, let's be clear about that. I both want and need you dead. And personally, I think you should be flattered, there have been very few humans I've ever actually wanted to kill. But when you die boy, it will be by my hand.'

Cain wanted to say something about being sorry to deny him the opportunity since he wasn't planning on dying anytime soon, but a not so sudden lapse into unconsciousness deprived him of the opportunity.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Conall was angry. Well, not so much angry as wrathful, or maybe vengeful? Eh, screw it, he was just mad as all hell. After years of experience Finn had learned to be very specific when dealing with Conall. When you used the wrong word he liked to take that word and run off with it before you had the chance to stop him and explain yourself. Forcing you to fight over something you didn't mean to start was his favorite way to win an argument.

This seemed an oddly appropriate time to consider Conall's fighting style. At this moment Finn's left eye was swollen shut, several ribs were broken, and he was fairly certain that if he left this chair alive he'd be walking with a limp the rest of his life. Conall had never been one to confront a problem head on. He liked to avoid, and he liked to slide up alongside and take your legs out from under you before you noticed he'd done it.

Conall kept the Elder Viewer unconscious by lacing him with some sort of drug, so their intent to bring him to keep everyone calm was pretty much wasted. Even Finn's ability to put people in a better mood was useless against the blind hate that War had set loose. Wyatt had woken for a while a few hours ago, just long enough for the men to do some more damage. Judging from his blown pupil and labored breathing, he was in worse shape than Finn at the moment.

This whole approach had taken Finn by surprise. True, the only fist fights Conall had ever been in had been with Wy, but still. This was too direct for him. Slipping them drugs, or rooting through their minds, that was more Conall's style. They'd spent too much time with Conall for him to get in their minds unless they let him, but this still didn't seem like the sort of approach he'd take to get information from them. To say nothing of the fact that there had been a disproportionate number of questions to punches.

All of these odd details were what convinced Finn that Conall wasn't actually looking for information, he was just pissed. He wanted them both in bloody piles on the floor, and didn't happen to feel like getting his own hands dirty.

Conall had just wrapped his mind around this possibility when in strode the man himself. He had a moment to look Conall in the eyes before a hunk of wood connected with his head and sent him into the black. But before the he sank into the painless slumber of the unconscious, he thought to himself, 'Shit, those aren't Conall's eyes'.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

-… _Ow._

-'Well, that's verbose of you.'

_-If you could just not talk for a minute, I'd appreciate it. _

-'I've been not talking for a while now. It's not my fault you were too busy being unconscious to notice it.'

_-If you're going to keep talking, at least be helpful. Is Finn alright?_

-'Great. Now you want me to be helpful.'

_-Ak, so help me I will …_

-'You'll what? Faint again?'

_-Will you just shut up!_

-'How will I tell you about Finn if I shut up?'

_-You know for a creature as old as you are, you certainly act like a child._

-'Brace yourself.'

_-What?_ Then a foot collided with his ribs, and Cain understood.

"I can tell you're awake, Wyatt. No point in pretending otherwise."

"You say that Conall, but I'm almost certain that I'm still asleep. Because things like this don't happen in real life."

"I think of all people you would be aware that torture exists, what with all that time in a tin suit."

Cain lolled his head to the side and cracked his eyes open to see Finn was still tied to the chair he'd been in when Cain went black for the second time that day. (Or what he thought was the second time, he'd been beaten pretty well today, so there was a definite possibility of some memory loss). "By things like this I was referring to you doing the beating." Cain turned back to Conall towering above him and caught what Finn had caught before he passed out.

"Though this make more sense."

Another kick to the ribs, and judging from the searing pain and ardent desire to pass out again, that rib that had been thinking about breaking for the last few hours had decided to stop fighting it. "Figured you weren't in enough pain if you're figuring things out."

-'You know, you don't even have to let me out of my box. Just want him to go flying across the room. Really want it.'

"You would have to beat me unconscious all over again to keep me from noticing that I don't know who you are." Cain said aloud.

"How hard did they hit you? I know my boys are good, but I didn't they had it in they to beat your memory from you."

"My memory is just fine, the problem is that whoever you happen to be, you're not Conall."

-'I know you don't particularly want to be hearing from me right now, but I think sending him flying across the room would be a good life choice.'

_-Stop talking! My head hurts too much to have ME in it, let alone you!_

-'I'm just saying, this is going to get ugly in a minute and I would like you to survive through it.'

_-So _you _can kill me._

-'Exactly.'

"Who are you talking to?" It took Cain a moment, but he realized that that voice was coming from Conall, not from inside his head.

"I didn't say anything out loud."

"Yes you did, Cain."

_-Did I say anything out loud?_

-'Nope.'

"No, I didn't." Cain could see the man inside Conall fighting the urge to say that the voice inside Cain's head was wrong, but that would mean admitting to knowing there was a voice inside Cain's head.

"Maybe I should break some more ribs and see if that makes you more willing to talk."

"I'm more than willing to tell you who I have roaming around my head if you'll tell me who's roaming around yours."

"Now Wyatt, what makes you so sure that I'm not myself?"

-'The fact that only psychopaths get that sort of twinge in their eyes?'

_-Shut up._

"Because I've known Conall since birth. And you are not Conall."

-'It's not exactly not him, it's more a variation on a theme.'

_-Again with the shut up._

"Who are you talking to!"

"The voice in my head, who are you talking to?"

Conall just stared at him with a blank expression on his face, not expecting Cain to admit to the presence of someone else in his mind.

-'Ooh! Hit him now, his guard is down!'

_-I'm not going to hurt him! I don't care about who's in his body, because at some point Conall is going to come back and he'll be the one hurt!_

"The voice in your head?" Conall crouched down next to Cain with a look of intense interest in his eyes. "And who would that voice be?"

"You show me yours and I'll show you mine." He tried to flinch away, he really did, but at this point in time his reflexes weren't the best they'd ever been. This time it was a sucker punch to his cheekbone and Cain was beginning to want to fall unconscious again.

_-Would you mind telling me who's running around up there?_

-'Do my ears deceive me? Or is Wyatt Cain humbling himself enough to ask for my help?'

_-You know, I could just die on you, and then where would you be?_

-'Still able to raise you from the dead to kill you again.'

_-Yeah, but that wouldn't be as much fun would it? I don't want to hurt him, and you want to kill him, so lets consider this a compromise shall we?_

-Ak sighed, 'I hope it takes me another ten thousand years before I have to deal with a human variation on myself again. This is really quite irritating.'

_-Glad I could be memorable._

-'He's Famine.'

_-But that's not possible. Conquest and War came with bodies, how could Famine come without one?_

-'They're not the same person, kiddo. I thought Conquest made that quite clear.' Ak felt Cain's frustration in waves, and he knew that if he didn't get a move on Cain would surrender consciousness just to spite him. 'Conquest is the most human of all of them, he's got the most passion and the most zeal for life. War is human in form, but lacks personality and humanity. Famine is a step further removed from humanity, a consciousness but not body. And since you'll be dead by the time death comes around I fell just fine letting the cat out of the bag and telling you it's not even a consciousness, just a force.'

_-So, the reason we didn't see Famine be released is because you put him in my family to help War destroy the world?_

-'You know what I like about you? You're quick on the uptake. I don't have to waste time explaining things to you over and over again, you just get them. Might have something to do with you being a fragment of me, but still.'

Famine was still staring at him like he wasn't entirely sure what was going on. It could tell Cain had something very powerful, and apparently conscious tucked away in his brain, but he didn't know what, and why the voice in the box wasn't the one in control. "It's my body Famine, not his. He can't take it from me unless I give it to him."

Well that took it by surprise. It jolted back, confused at being called by its real name. This human knew his name, which meant it knew his purpose, which meant it had to die before it could stop him. Famine stood back up and slowly drew its gun from its holster. "I am sorry about this. I prefer slow deaths, there's so much more life to gleaned if I take my time. And it is a pity, because you have life to give."

Cain only had the briefest of moments to think, _Oh, he's just gonna kill you,_ before the world went black again.

* * *

It was a very long test, leave me some love. :)


	17. Marksman

"Come out, come out, wherever you are." There was an unearthly hollowness to Ak's voice. It echoed when he spoke, and even though Finn had little magical ability, he could feel the waves of it coming off him. Finn ducked behind another tree as the ground had another rolling fit underneath him. He kept an arm clenched to his side, trying to brace his broken ribs so he could keep moving. Finn tried to hug himself close to the ground, but the cover around him was flickering in and out of existence, making it hard to stay hidden.

Finn had woken to the sickening thud of Conall slamming high into a wall, and then sliding down it as he trailed behind a stain of blood. Wyatt was gasping on the floor, groaning and thrashing as the bruises on his face slowly melted away. Judging from the fact his breathing started to come easier, Finn could only assume that the broken ribs were dripping away as well.

Finn tried whispered to Wyatt to get his attention before Conall's men came storming in the room with guns blazing, but he was too busy healing to notice. Wyatt's thrashing slowed, and as Conall tried to shuffle his chair over to him to figure out what was going on, Finn felt the ropes around his wrists slowly loosen and fall to the floor.

Well, that didn't usually happen. There were two reasons luck would finally turn in his favor. Reason number one: he had apparently been developed extra-human strength and been thrashing against the ropes while he was unconscious, though judging from the way his wrists burned when he flexed his hands, that was unlikely. Reason number two: someone with enchanted fingers had undone the magical knot and set him free. Now, there were only four people Finn knew who could do that to a sealed knot. One was a thief currently living a very good life in Central City, the second and third were princesses who promised they'd stay where it was safe, and the fourth…

Wyatt climbed to his feet with none of the flinching he should have had. Nope, not Wyatt. One look in his eyes and Finn knew he wasn't dealing with Wyatt anymore. Finn spoke as calmly as he could, trying not to sound terrified. "Thought you couldn't take him over again."

"Who says I took anything?"

"You tried to kill his son. I'm pretty sure he didn't _give_ you anything."

Ak chuckled and Finn felt himself being lifted out of his chair. "No, I suppose he didn't. Though none of that really matters now."

"No, I'm pretty sure you breaking the laws of the universe again to take over my cousin's body would be a thing that mattered."

"It's going to have to matter to someone else then. Because you have bigger problems to deal with today."

"And those would be?" That was the first time Finn noticed the hollow ping to Ak's voice. Like it was echoing around a stone room with nothing to absorb the sound. Wooden rooms didn't make that echo.

"You swore him an oath, Finn. You promised that if I came back, the first chance you got you'd put a bullet in Wyatt's brain. I can't let you do that."

Finn glanced around, desperately hoping that somehow the Elder Viewer wasn't about to be killed as well. "Oh, don't worry. Conall has him in a basement somewhere. He didn't like how the Viewer was looking at him."

"Well, that's understandable, seeing as how he's not Conall and all."

Ak smirked. "You boys really are quite a clever bunch, you know that?"

"We try."

"It really is a pity I'm going to have to kill you. You would have made an excellent sidekick." The pain was sudden and blinding; white hot light searing through his skill and dropping him to his knees. Finn cradled his head, for the first time in his life wishing he could just die.

But then he felt it. Dancing around the edge of his mind he could hear Wyatt. A whisper that cut through the agony. "Run. Count to three then run."

It hurt to breath. It hurt to think. It hurt to keep existing. But somehow he held onto the thought and counted to three. The pain tore away from him, almost as painful going as it was coming, but Finn remembered to run. It was more a lollop than a run, but he still stumbled past Wyatt and crashed through the door. The part of him that could still think straight didn't want to leave Wyatt thrashing in pain, but he knew that what was left of his cousin could only buy him so much time.

Finn had to find a gun.

He'd catapulted himself into the woods, unsure why none of Conall's men had stopped him yet, but then he felt it. The ground shuddered beneath him, heaving him from his feet. The Gilis were too busy protecting their families, and trying to find shelter against the shocks to chase Finn. He hauled himself back to his feet and hobbled for the tree line.

The ground rolled underneath him. Literally rolled. As in undulated. The ground was rippling like water. This was no earthquake. Finn wobbled behind the closest tree and paused a moment to catch his breath before diving deeper into the forest.

That's when Ak started taunting. He ridiculed Finn, shouting obscenities about his family, and his people, but Finn couldn't hear them. Something had ripped inside him, something that wasn't supposed to be moved was now making it impossible to breathe. He started to cough, and though he tried to keep it quiet, he knew Ak had heard. He was being hunted by Ak, the world was fading around him, and neither of those thoughts troubled him so much as the realization that as he coughed he tasted the blood from his lungs bubbling up.

Finn sunk down behind a tree and searched for a branch. He was too tired to run, but too stubborn to make it easy for Ak. Trees and shrubbery were flickering in and out of existence around him, but he still managed to find a limb that stayed solid long enough to at least get one good shot at Ak. "You're going to have to do better than that."

Finn almost dropped the stick at Conquest stepping out from behind a tree. Finn stared at him a moment, just to make sure this wasn't the blood loss costing him what was left of his mind, but then he hissed, "What the hell are you doing here? You're supposed to be with Jeb and Deeg!"

"Oh, I am. They're deeper in the forest with Az, waiting for my signal."

Finn fought the need to retch. They were here. The two people who had been keeping Wyatt human, giving him the will to fight, and now they were in shooting range. "How did you get here so fast?"

"So fast? Finn, it's been almost three days since you left. Today is _the_ day." Conquest finally took the time to really look at Finn. He'd seen the swollen face, but now he noticed the way Finn clutched his ribs, and the flecks of blood that appeared on his lips every time he coughed. "What happened to you?"

"Conall wasn't Conall, and now Wyatt isn't Wyatt and Conall isn't living anymore."

"What do you mean Wyatt isn't Wyatt? He _has_ to be Wyatt, there's nobody else he could be!"

"Well, I hate to contradict you, but you're wrong about that." The tree limb in Finn's hand gave one last surge to stay in reality, but then flashed out of existence all together. "The world is going to hell in a hand basket, so why _shouldn't_ Ak take him over again." Sarcasm probably wasn't the best means to deal with this situation, but it worked for Finn.

Conquest stared at the space where the stick had just been and the color drained out of his face. "Oh no, no, no, no, no. This isn't happening."

"Ak's magic is just going postal, why would that be a reason to freak out?"

"This isn't Ak's magic, and this isn't Death. This is just oblivion."

"What are you talking about?"

"He broke the rules and nature doesn't want to play with him anymore."

"He's broken the rules before." The pain in Finn's lungs was growing. He couldn't focus anymore, and though he knew Conquest was trying to tell him something important, he didn't understand and didn't really care.

"He's bent, not broke. But he took over something he wasn't allowed to touch, went somewhere that Wyatt forbade him to go. Wyatt has rights to his own body, and no matter how powerful he is, Ak can't take that right unless Wyatt gives it to him or doesn't tell him no. Ak _can't_ be here!"

"Actually boy, I can." Conquest jumped to his feet and for the first time in his long existence, he was scared.

"You can't do this, Ak!" Conquest had made a mistake. He should've talked Deeg and Jeb into staying home, found some way to convince them that they were betraying Wyatt by following, or at the very least tied them up and put them in a basement somewhere so they weren't willfully betraying. He stepped away from Finn, trying to draw Ak's attention away from the crumbled man, hoping that whatever was about to happen to him, Finn wouldn't get caught in the crossfire.

"Actually, I can do whatever I want."

"Look around you! Solid earth is behaving like water! Trees are flickering in and out of existence! You snapped a law of nature in two and tap danced on the pieces!"

"You have always been far too overdramatic."

"No, I'm pretty damn sure that this is the right level of dramatic for the end reality!"

Ak waived his hand and Conquest just stopped. Stopped yelling. Stopped breathing. Stopped being more than a statue made of flesh. "You've spent too much time with these humans my boy. You've forgotten what you are and whom you serve. I think it's time you go back in your box, but don't worry, I'll give you something to remember this world by."

With another waive of his hand the line of trees that separated Ak from Jeb, DG, and Az slipped into nothingness. "I have learned a few things from my time in this human, particularly that all those years in a tin suit should have driven him mad. Watching the people he loved be beaten to death over and over again, it's enough to ruin even the best of men. And you, my boy, you are not the best of men. So let's see what it does to you to spend an eternity watching the deaths of the only creatures you've ever cared about."

Jeb threw himself forward, trying to take the brunt of whatever was about to consume them and maybe spark something of Wyatt. But Jeb needn't have worried.

The rapport of one gun shot smashed through the air from Conall's gun in Finn's. Half crippled and dying Finn still found the strength to launch himself forward and in one smooth motion pierced Ak through the heart.

Finn had lived a long life plagued by violence. If there was one thing he knew, it was how to kill a man. And so, with one bullet, Finn left Wyatt Cain with no life for Ak to heal.


	18. Fighting

I hope the ending satisfies. They really are the hardest parts, because you hate to disappoint people. Especially those who shouldn't have stuck with you quite so long. Enjoy, and THANK YOU!

* * *

DG leaned harder into the hole in Cain's chest, trying to stop the blood loss. But the more pressure she put the more she felt warm blood seep between her fingers. "Az! Get over here!" DG just pressed harder, trying to keep whatever life Cain still had inside of him. "You can't go Cain. I won't let you die." She whispered to him, unable to stop herself from pleading.

"Az, I need your help!" DG finally pulled her head up from Cain's resting face to look for Az, and saw her arms wrapped around a crumpled and gasping Jeb.

That's when DG noticed it.

There was a pale strip of light glowing in the air across Cain, and as it steadily grew longer DG felt licks of magic flicking from within it. The line of light stretched to several feet and then began to peel apart, opening to the world underneath it.

There was blinding white light and magic dancing along the edge of the doorway, debating with itself whether or not it was allowed out. From the light stepped a woman, tall and graceful, with eyes like DG. She knelt down across from DG and brushed a tuft of hair out of DG's eyes.

DG flinched back and started yelling. "Go back! Go back to wherever the hell it is that you sleep between centuries, because I don't want you here!" DG pressed all the harder while Lorelai just knelt there and watched with a placating smile on her face.

"He's dead, Dorothy Gale. Finn made it a kill shot, and he's very good at what he does. Wyatt didn't feel a thing."

"Don't you dare talk about him." DG glared at Lorelai and for the first time she knew what it was to hate someone. Zero, the Witch, the Longcoats, these were all people. They did wretched things and deserved to be roasted alive, but she didn't hate them like she hated this creature. Lorelai had plagued her memories of what it might be like to be with Cain, and then pulled the strings that got him killed. She wanted Lorelai to suffer.

DG felt strong arms wrap around her from behind and try to pull her away from Cain's body, but she ripped against them. Az kept her arms around Jeb, holding him back when all he wanted was to lunge for Lorelai. Finn was back against the tree, watching everything as he slowly bled out, but Conquest remembered his promise to Wyatt and wanted to spare DG the memory of feeling her lover's blood stop flowing. "Deeg, she's right. You can't help him now. He's gone." She ripped against Conquest, fighting to get out of his arms, but he clutched her to his chest, trying to still her. She started to sob, unable to stop the agony of the moment from taking over.

"He can't be gone. He can't. He's been shot before, but he's survived. He's so strong. He's supposed to survive everything. He's the Tin Man." She collapsed against Conquest as he tried to hold her steady against him and keep her from shattering. She could feel the shuddering in his chest and knew that Conquest was trying not to cry.

"Why did you do it? Why do you let him die?"

"We ran out of time for you to do what we needed. So we forced your hand."

"What the hell is wrong with you! Why are you so damn determined to destroy us? What do you get out of it?"

"Wyatt explained this to you."

"Now _you_ explain it to me!"

"You already have your answer, Dorothy Gale. We can't have your human traces running around inside of us. You're little bits of empathy and passion that have no place in what we do. And so we chose to be rid of you."

"But why do this? How does destroying the OZ and ripping us to pieces help your plan?" Lorelai and her pale blue eyes kept time with DG's for a moment before DG couldn't help but laugh.

All the waste that led to this moment was too much for her. Former allies were marching to war against them, they were barely undoing the damage that the Witch had done, and now Cain was broken into a pile of blood. And she hadn't even gotten to start saying hello, let alone say goodbye.

"There wasn't a point. You didn't _have _to do this. You could've just excised your human bits, sent to us to the OZ, and let us live our lives in peace. Born, live, die, all without any threat to you. But you did it anyway, just to prove you could. Destroying the OZ, screwing with us, it was all just to make sure that you could." DG spat the words out and tried to push against Lorelai with her magic, but she wasn't strong enough. Lorelai felt a breeze skim past her face, but now that she was here on her own and not channelling through DG, she was back to her own levels of untrained magic.

"Where's Death?"

Lorelai looked upset for a moment, and evened out her expression quickly, but DG caught it. "He's on his way."

"No he's not. I haven't betrayed anything, which means he's still twiddling his thumbs on the other side. And you can't do anything yet. If I don't betray Wyatt, then you have no right to be here. You're the one who set up the rules to this thing, and now you have to abide by them because if you don't then the world starts breaking apart. Death can't go postal until I betray the thing I believe in most."

Lorelai was pissed, with no two ways about it. Her face was a perfect mask of calm, but since Lorelai was a piece of DG, she could feel the ripples of rage. "Considering you went and killed the thing I believe in above all else, I have a feeling it's going to be a little difficult to betray him. So this should be fun for you."

DG tamped down the overwhelming desire to throw something at Lorelai just for the fun of it. She acknowledged in the back of her mind that Lorelai was probably the most powerful magical being in creation, so tormenting her probably wasn't the best way to go about getting Cain back. And that's what DG intended to do. This was going to get ugly, and fast. But she was going to fight for him. To DG, letting him stay dead would be a betrayal, and that wasn't going to happen.

"You can't stop us child. This has been planned for hundreds of years."

"Right. You started scheming after you screwed your best friend and thought that blaming humanity would be easier than dealing with it?" She shook Conquest's arms from her and rose to her feet like it didn't hurt to breath and everything didn't depend on this.

DG could feel Conquest's eyes trailing her movements away from him, wondering if she'd gone absolutely insane. There was a breath of Cain still alive in Conquest, and that piece told him she was up to something devious. The piece of Cain did not approve, but all the other pieces of Conquest did.

"If you think the memories she gave you were spicy Deeg, you should've seen the ones she didn't." If looks could kill (and Lorelai's probably could if she wanted them to), then Conquest would have dropped dead that moment. "Seriously, Deeg. The things I had to cover up for them, and the motel doors I guarded in the most wretchedly seedy parts of the OZ; it'd be too much for a sweet girl from Kansas to bear."

"I dunno Con. I guess the only way to know if I can take it is for you to just tell me all the nitty gritty details."

"Ak was right," Lorelai interrupted. "The humans have driven you completely insane. There's really no other explanation for it."

"It's not _insanity_ Lore-baby, it's the realization that I'm either going to die or spent eternity talking to myself in a box: so I figure I ought to live while I can." Conquest threw an arm around DG and said, "Ahh Deeg, the stories I'm gonna tell you."

"I will silence you before you get the chance to spread lies about me child." Lorelai rose to her feet, all majestic perfection, and DG wanted to giggle. Lorelai was furious. All those human lifetimes and she still couldn't handle being mocked.

"No you won't. I've been around you four a long, _long_ time, and I know your personalities. Ak is more than willing to destroy reality, but you aren't. You've kept that shiny strip of a doorway open because you're not legitimately here until it closes. But that's as far as you're willing to bend the rule. You won't use your magic while you're here because you're not a big fan of the world falling apart."

This time DG did smile. "So all I have to do is sit here and listen to Con regale me with tails of how you're a coward for a few more hours, and then your big plan will be ruined. I can do that."

"No matter what Conquest thinks child, I will kill them all."

DG snickered. "No you won't. I'm a piece of you, Lor. I know that you won't do a damn thing to them because you like this reality just how it is. You're not mad at all those people out there, you're mad at yourselves." DG held the pause for a moment and stared at Lorelai as everything finally snapped into focus.

"You're mad at yourselves! Oh shut up!" DG started to pace as the pieces fit into place. "This wasn't planned. The Witch was your plan, your way of destroying us without even getting your hands dirty. I was meant to stay dead as a child, Cain was supposed to die in the suit, Raw was going to get killed by his own people, and Glitch was meant to die in surgery. But we didn't. You underestimated us and your grand plan went bust when we saved the OZ.

"That's when you found a loophole and sent out the Horsemen. And that's why you've been cheating like the suspicious husband in act one of a Law and Order episode, because you don't have a plan after this one. If we win this round you're out of options." Conquest started pacing with her, thrilled to be learning something new after all these years.

"Our orders were abrupt. Usually we have a few decades to scheme and do prep-work, but this time it was a only a few weeks."

"That's why The Mystic Man told Conall that 'Wy had to live' not because he was some important continuation of Ak, but because you wanted him dead, and you'd rip apart the world to do it.

"But..." DG paused again, confused this time. "The Sibyl was wrong. She said you sent the Horsemen to wipe clean all the damage from the Witch. But that's not why they're here. How did she get it wrong?"

Conquest just shrugged. "She knew our presence was contingent upon the death of the Witch. She made an educated guess."

"An educated guess? The Sibyl of Delphi made an educated guess!?"

"It's not like a watching a movie Deeg. And her gift isn't as strong as it used to be."

"Why the hell not?"

Conquest blushed. DG didn't give a lot of credence to the argument that they were making the Horseman more human, but she had to admit that the sight of him blushing was pretty good evidence. "She got corrupt, Deeg. To have an unfettered gift she had to abide by certain rules, she broke some of those rules and her gift was reduced accordingly."

"She got punished because she slept with Apollo? Seriously? What kind of system is this?"

"Really, you choose to focus on this now?"

"... point taken. So, I don't do anything resembling betraying Cain for the next few hours, and we're all good?"

"Seems like it."

"I'm quite pleased you have it all figured out." There was clipped tone to Lorelai's words, even though DG didn't need them to tell she was irritated with being figured out. Not furious though, DG had been shooting for furious.

"You've saved the OZ all over again so you can go back to your pretend lives full of heartbreak as you put this country back together. Az will ignore her nightmares, Jeb will bury his last parent, Ak will throw Conquest in a cage while he spends a few thousand years researching how to kill him, and you, Dorothy Gale, you'll roam the OZ making things grow until the Royalists demand you take an Outlander prince to your bed and secure the succession. Yes child, you truly won the day.

"But don't you worry, I won't leave you comfortless. I'll slip you some memories of mine so you'll know what it's like to wake to the rise and fall of his breath underneath you, or to feel the heat of his eyes trailing you at a ball. And maybe, if you're very, very good, I'll create you some of your own, so you'll know what it would have been like to carry his child, or go for a walk around the palace gardens holding his hand, or to share his bed. Perhaps those will make your marriage more bearable."

DG had kept herself from looking at Cain's body. Conquest had paced between her and him, trying to keep her eyes from going down to see him lying there. "You can't."

"You mind will always be connected to mine. I can put whatever I want there."

"You can try, but you can't make those memories. You can't understand them." She really was a wretched woman. The memories that DG had wanted to make, experiences and adventures she'd dreamt of having. All gone now.

"Your memories were hollow. You tried to be real, you tried to know love, to feel it. But you weren't brave enough. To love means letting go of the security of forever and accepting that maybe all you get is today, and deciding that that's worth all the pain that's going to come. You can plague me with shadows until the day I die, but that's all they'll be."

She couldn't stop the tears anymore, and she didn't want to try. "I've loved more in my one short life than you have in your thousands. And you know what? The few months of knowing him will be worth the whole lifetime of missing him."

Lorelai just stared at DG, as though some long misunderstood component to the human race just slid into place and suddenly she understood something that lifetimes of experience and study hadn't revealed to her.

"Though, I'd prefer if it didn't go that way." DG's words were more halting and slow then she wanted, but she asked Lorelai anyway, with more humility then she thought had. DG opened up her mind and let the river of it flow into Lorelai; all the special moments, the glances across a room, the midnight conversations, the guilty dreams she had, the hopes for a future, and the shiver in her spine the first time he hugged her, like she'd just been made whole.

Lorelai understood love in theory; understood what it made people do, and how people saw it, but she'd never felt it. So DG showed her its depth, in all it confusion and beauty. "I want to keep him. I want to keep my family to a ripe old age after a long life of full memories and die in his arms."

"You're asking me to undo this?"

"Yes."

"You've yelled at me, insulted me, dishonored me, thwarted me, and now you're asking me to pretend like none of it ever happened?"

"Yes, _please_."

"You want me to stop the rioting in Central City, put Conall's brains back inside his head, take the blood out of Finn's lungs, and raise Wyatt from the dead?"

"And, if you wouldn't mind, let us keep Conquest."

"I would agree to do this because?"

"You're the creator of life, Lorelai. You're the mother. And all any mother wants for her children is for them to love and be loved. I showed you more love in the last fifteen seconds then you've experienced in your whole life. So now, I'm asking you, please let me keep him. Let me keep them."

"You humans are most peculiar creatures. The things Conquest has done, the things he has gotten men to do, would make your blood run cold. To say nothing of how you abhor Conall for the things he's said."

"I don't care. They're family now."

Lorelai just sighed. Goodness knows how many thousands of years, and that was the first time she'd felt love. It was pure and unfettered, and DG knew as well as Lorelai did that she couldn't destroy that. "It's a lot of damage to simply make right. A lot of blood lost that I haven't even noticed yet."

"Well, rather than going around and just fixing things, you could literally just undo them."

"Let's just make sure I'm clear on this, you want me to turn back time and erase the last week?"

"If that's alright with you."

"You know, this is an incredibly Ak-like thing for me to say, but I can't wait until I don't have a human version of me running around. You complicate things greatly."

"Well, I'd apologize for, ya know, existing. But I don't think I make it sound sincere."

"I'm about to do you a huge favor and now is the time you chose to be sarcastic?" DG threw her arms around Lorelai and squeezed her into a hug. DG felt Lorelai sigh. and for just a moment the world was bathed in light before DG slipped into unconsciousness.


	19. Epilogue

DG was wrapped in warm blankets, fighting the influence of the pestering sunlight. The Autumn Feast last night had been exhausting. Being forced to talk to people she didn't like and to dance like she knew what was going on had drained every last bit of adrenaline she had stored in her system. All she wanted to do today was stay in her sheets for the rest of the day. Or maybe roam out for some snacks and some sketching.

Life had been phenomenal the past forty-eight hours. The Cain men had had it out, Jeb had told Az they were family, and now everyone was getting along. In fact, if they hadn't been forced to play nice with diplomats last night these last two days would have been perfect. And if the fact that her birthday was in a week and a not-so-subtle part of DG's brain was anxious to see what Wyatt would get her, there were worse things.

Wyatt. She'd just called him Wyatt. She'd said it in her head, but never before, not in her head nor out loud.

Then it all came slamming back. DG threw off her covers and burst out her bedroom door to find Jeb and Az hugging outside Az's door. Jeb had been on guard duty a week ago, DG remembered that now. Apparently when the week had come back to them they had gone looking for one another. And judging from the strength of that hug and the utter lack of light to be seen between them, this was something Az and DG were going to have a chat about later.

DG turned to the guard standing outside her door, and since his shock seemed to be more about Jeb and Az than about how his last week had been undone, DG assumed they were the only ones who remembered. The two of them broke apart when Glitch and Raw came careening down the hall looking for hugs of their own. Everyone talked over everyone else, finding out what had happened to the others while they were away, and somehow Jeb, Az, and DG all hit the same point in the story at identical moments.

They stopped their stories mid-word and ripped down the hall to Cain's room. Jeb didn't even slow down to knock, he just slammed his shoulder into the door and bashed it open. Az paused to laugh for a moment about what Cain would say when he saw the state of his doorframe, but at the sight of Cain's empty room Jeb and DG were already rushing down the hall to continue their search where the family ate breakfast.

Deeg made it to the door first this time, much to the eventual gratitude of the palace maintenance staff. She threw the door open and lingered a moment as she caught Cain's eye at the breakfast table, sitting next to Conquest who was discovering the joys of strawberries for his first eating experience. (And for the next few days he'd stop himself occasionally and wonder at the feel of a heartbeat in his chest).

Her parents had slightly shocked expressions on their faces from Conquest telling them the story of the last week in between his very enthusiastic bites of strawberry. When the door burst open Wyatt rose to his feet, but it was barely enough time to settle himself before DG bounded into his arms and wrapped her legs around his waist while she sealed her lips to his.

Make no mistake, Ahamo wanted to channel the Godfather at this particular moment, considering that whatever discomfort Cain had been in when Deeg started kissing him was rapidly fading away. However, Ahamo couldn't hate him. He would find every opportunity to him feel like a dirty old man, but he couldn't hate him.

They were glowing. And not in the 'I'm so happy to see you' sort of way. They were glowing with the pale blue light of white magic, and somehow, Ahamo felt it in his bones that to keep them from one another would be fighting fate.

DG pulled back from Cain for a moment to draw breath and smiled when he followed her kiss away from him, unwilling to stop. "Heya, Tin Man."

"Hey Princess."

"I love you, ya know."

"Got me brought back from the dead. I assumed."

"Not what you're supposed to say, Tin Man."

Cain lifted his hand to run his fingers through DG's bangs and whispered, "No point in tellin' you what you already know."

"Say it anyway."

He leaned in and kissed her, soft and slow, just the two of them (minus the room of people watching, but they're forgotten reality at this moment). "Love you, Deeg."

She ran her fingers through his white hair and clasped her hands at the back of his neck. She was tempted to say something snarky, but all she could think was, "I got to keep you."


End file.
